Democrats are expected to have a winner Tuesday night after a tumulus start in their presidential primary process and officials hope a victor here offers some clarity on who the party will ultimately name to take on President Donald Trump in November.

‘We’ve got this. We know what we’re doing here. The only way it will last that long if the numbers are so close we have a virtual tie,’ New Hampshire Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley told reporters on a phone call Monday.

‘Everything here is paper ballot. Nothing is connected to the internet. The ballots are immediately impounded by the state police. There is just no question for anyone to have any fear,’ he added.

Amy Klobuchar visits a polling stop in Manchester

Elizabeth Warren brings donuts to a polling site Portsmouth

Small New Hampshire town votes for Bloomberg in primary

Polls close at 8 p.m. ET. Unlike Iowa, where party officials and volunteers run the caucuses, state officials run the New Hampshire primary. Both Republicans and Democrats are voting on Tuesday.

The real contest is among the Democrats, however, as President Trump is expected to win the Republican primary.

But one Democratic winner doesn’t mean the party will have their nomination all wrapped and ready to take on the president, who held a rally in Manchester Monday night to taunt his political rivals.

No single candidate has yet united the Democrats nationally and the current field of contenders represent all corners of the party: young, old, moderate, liberal, pragmatic, hopeful.

And where the candidates enter the field on Tuesday may not be where they exit.

Bernie Sanders held his final campaign rally with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Monday night

Bernie Sanders: The leader in the New Hampshire polls, Sanders wants the victory. He won the 2016 Democratic primary in New Hampshire but lost the nomination that year to Hillary Clinton. He and Pete Buttigieg are fighting over who came out on top in the Iowa caucuses (Buttigieg picked up the most delegates and Sanders is asking for a recanvass). He needs a clear cut New Hampshire victory to boost him to finish what he couldn’t in the last presidential cycle.

‘If we win here tomorrow, I think we’ve got a path to victory for the Democratic nomination,’ the Vermont senator told supporters at one of his rallies on Monday.

He closed out his campaigning Monday evening with over 7,500 attendees with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a performance by The Strokes.

Pete Buttigieg: Buttigieg touted himself the front runner after Iowa’s caucus debacle but now he needs to show he comes out on top when all the votes are counted. The youngest candidate in the field, he’s come under attack for his lack of experience but has argued his ability to bring out support makes up for never having held national office.

Pete Buttigieg walks and N.H. Rep. Annie Kuster while carrying doughnuts to a poling station in Hopkinton

‘It feels good out here,’ he told reporters on Monday.

He fell behind Sanders in the latest round of New Hampshire polls and started to down play a victory in the state in its final hours.

‘Look we are competing against home region competition, two New England senators I recognize that, but I still think we’re going to have a great night,’ he told NBC News in an interview that aired on the ‘Today’ show Tuesday morning, referring to Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Warren promises to continue fighting ahead of NH primary

But the former mayor was up and out early Tuesday morning, bringing donuts to a polling place in Hopkinton and appearing on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe.’

Amy Klobuchar changes into more comfortable shoes after a rally

Amy Klobuchar: A few polls put her in third place going into Tuesday, giving her momentum in the closing hours of the primary. A bronze medal keeps her campaign viable and the cash flowing in. She’s already guaranteed a spot on the Las Vegas debate stage thanks to her coming out of Iowa with one delegate but a third place finish or higher gives her bid a big boost going into the next round of contests in Nevada and South Carolina.

‘I need your help,’ Klobuchar told a rally in Exeter, New Hampshire, her voice breaking as she spoke the words.

‘Right now we are on the cusp of something really great,’ she said, ‘but I can’t call everyone you know. So I’m asking you to do that today.’

The Minnesota senator won two out of the three small northern New Hampshire towns that gather at their polling places at midnight: Hart’s Location and Millsfield.

Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren: Polls show them tied for fourth, which is particularly troubling for the former vice president. Both candidates spent Monday explaining why their campaigns are viable and both have announced their next round of campaign stops after Tuesday’s vote is counted.

Joe Biden is looking ahead to the next round of contests

The big question mark is money. Do they have the funds to keep their campaigns afloat until they can rack up a primary win? And when will that win come? Nevada and South Carolina are the next two contests. The pressure will be on.

Warren visited her press bus on Monday to give a rare talk about the state of her campaign. The Massachusetts senator doesn’t typically discuss strategy.

‘I just have to keep fighting. That’s, that’s what it’s all about. I cannot say to all those little girls: ‘This got hard and I quit.’ My job is to persist,’ she said.

Biden also lowered expectations for New Hampshire.

Elizabeth Warren told reporters she has to ‘keep fighting’

‘It’s an uphill race here,’ he told CNN Monday night. ‘We’re running against two senators from neighboring states, has never been a good thing to happen to any other candidates going in the race.’

And he emphasized there are more contests to come.

‘The path is South Carolina, and going into Nevada and Super Tuesday,’ he told NBC News.

Andrew Yang: It’s unclear what path forward he has if he doesn’t have a decent showing in New Hampshire, where he invested both time and money heavily early on.

But, on the other end of this round, Michael Bloomberg and his billions are waiting for which ever Democratic contender emerges from the next round of contests in Nevada and South Carolina.

The former New York City mayor skipped the four early contests to focus his time and money on the Super Tuesday states, where a huge chunk of delegates will be awarded.

But, on Tuesday, all eyes are on New Hampshire and officials claim the contest is wide open.

‘This is anyone’s race to win. I still believe that and I truly do,’ Buckley, the Democratic chair, said Monday. ‘We have multiple candidates representing the perspective of all the voters so they all have choices.’

President Trump got into the action Monday with a rally in Manchester where he suggested Republicans could cause some mischief on Tuesday.

‘I hear a lot of Republicans tomorrow will vote for the weakest candidate possible of the Democrats,’ the president said. ‘My only problem is I’m trying to figure out who is their weakest candidate. I think they’re all weak.’

But only registered Democrats and voters not registered with either party can participate in the state’s Democratic presidential primary.

The spectra of the Iowa caucuses – where problems with an app the party developed to count the votes led to a hand count of paper ballots with delayed and questionable results – has haunted New Hampshire.

The candidates have joked that – as opposed to last week’s contest New Hampshire can count – but under the laughter is the fear that even if the state has a winner, there still won’t be a clear front runner for the nomination.

And that is what worries party elders, who are harboring fears by the time a nominee emerges, that person will be so damaged politically it’ll be 2016 all over again when Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.

President Trump held a rally in Manchester Monday night and suggested Republicans could make some mischief

The Strokes performed at a Bernie Sanders rally Monday night

Sanders is leading by 8 points in the RealClearPolitics polling average of New Hampshire polls but the unexpected can happen.

Polls showed a third of New Hampshire voters remain undecided, making the last 24 hours in the state crucial for the candidates ahead of Tuesday’s primary.

Almost half New Hampshire voters – 47 per cent – are independents and tend to pick their candidates late in the process.

Attendance was heavy at rallies for all the candidates in the last 24 hours, indicating voters are still shopping for a contender to support.

New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner anticipates turn out Tuesday night 420,000 voters, which would be the most votes cast in a presidential primary when an incumbent is running for re-election.

Al WIlson – The Snake (Enhanced Audio)

The Snake

On her way to work one morning
Down the path along side the lake
A tender hearted woman saw a poor half frozen snake
His pretty colored skin had been all frosted with the dew
“Poor thing, ” she cried, “I’ll take you in and I’ll take care of you”
“Take me in tender woman
Take me in, for heaven’s sake
Take me in, tender woman, ” sighed the snake

She wrapped him up all cozy in a comforter of silk
And laid him by her fireside with some honey and some milk
She hurried home from work that night and soon as she arrived
She found that pretty snake she’d taken to had been revived
“Take me in, tender woman
Take me in, for heaven’s sake
Take me in, tender woman, ” sighed the snake

She clutched him to her bosom, “You’re so beautiful, ” she cried
“But if I hadn’t brought you in by now you might have died”
She stroked his pretty skin again and kissed and held him tight
Instead of saying thanks, the snake gave her a vicious bite
“Take me in, tender woman
Take me in, for heaven’s sake
Take me in, tender woman, ” sighed the snake
“I saved you, ” cried the woman
“And you’ve bitten me, but why?
You know your bite is poisonous and now I’m going to die”
“Oh shut up, silly woman, ” said the reptile with a grin
“You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in
“Take me in, tender woman
Take me in, for heaven’s sake
Take me in, tender woman, ” sighed the snake

Economy outranks other issues among potential 2020 voters, according to new survey

Policy 2020: Unpacking the issues shaping the 2020 election

America’s Biggest Issues: Spending

Despite their promises to the contrary, every year, politicians continue to spend hundreds of billions of dollars more than the government takes in. And every year, they put it on the national credit card and the bill grows bigger. That bill currently averages $67,000 for every single American. If you’re a family of three, that’s over $200,000. The Heritage Foundation’s Romina Boccia explains how it’s not too late to save the incredible promise that is America. But first, we have to convince leaders to end their runaway spending habits and adopt spending controls. View more: https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-s…

How to Solve America’s Spending Problem

The Bigger the Government…

Why Private Investment Works & Govt. Investment Doesn’t

Social Security Won’t Give You Security

America’s Debt Crisis Explained

America’s Biggest Issues: Health Care

Most Americans agree that the health care system in the United States is in need of an overhaul. What many are not in agreement on is how best to do it. As we weigh our options, The Heritage Foundation’s Genevieve Wood explains a few basic facts you need to know. View more: https://www.heritage.org/health-care-…

How the Government Made You Fat

What Creates Wealth?

What’s Wrong with Government-Run Healthcare?

America’s Biggest Issues: Education

American colleges and universities are failing in one of their most basic missions: to equip students with the tools they need for a career. Many students graduate ill-prepared to earn a living and pay off the debt they’ve accumulated getting their degrees. Forty percent of those who start college don’t finish within six years. Additionally, students are often subject to indoctrination into socialist ideology. They face hostility toward opinions that don’t conform to the predominantly leftist thinking on campus. They’re also immersed in identity politics that pit students of different backgrounds against one another. Despite these problems, colleges continue to raise tuition. The Heritage Foundation’s Lindsey Burke explains how to stop the sharp rise in both college tuition and student debt by getting the federal government out of the student loan business. View more: https://www.heritage.org/education/he…

How the Liberal University Hurts the Liberal Student

America’s Biggest Issues: Welfare

When President Lyndon Johnson launched his War on Poverty in the 1960s, he pledged to eliminate poverty in America. But more than five decades, several welfare programs, and $25 trillion later, the welfare system has largely failed the poor. The Heritage Foundation’s Genevieve Wood explains that the United States currently spends about a trillion dollars a year on over 90 different federal, state, and local welfare programs. Yet around 12 percent of Americans are still considered poor. We are clearly spending a lot of money so why do we still have such a high poverty rate? View more: https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-…

There Is Only One Way Out of Poverty

America’s Biggest Issues: Immigration

Immigration is one of the fundamental building blocks that help make America the unique nation that it is. But the debate over border security and immigration has become toxic because politicians have put politics before principles. And reasonable Americans find themselves trapped between zealots on both sides. So what does a thoughtful agenda for American immigration reform look like? The Heritage Foundation’s Genevieve Wood takes us through four guiding principles to keep us focused on what is best for the welfare of all Americans, both those of today and those of the future. View more: https://www.heritage.org/immigration/…

A Nation of Immigrants

America Wants Legal Immigrants

Illegal Immigration: It’s About Power

America’s Biggest Issues: Environment

In the 1970s, Americans were told we were in a global cooling crisis and if something weren’t done, we’d enter a new ice age. When that didn’t happen, a few decades later we were told that entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend was not reversed by the year 2000. Despite the consistent failure of these apocalyptic warnings, that hasn’t stopped climate change alarmism. We’re now being told we only have 12 years to combat climate change and the solution is to fundamentally dismantle the system of free enterprise. That means Washington controls things like how we produce our energy, what food we eat and what type of cars we drive. The question is, even if we believed their alarmist, catastrophic predictions, would their proposals work? The Heritage Foundation’s Nick Loris helps dispel some environmental myths, and explains how America can ensure affordable, reliable, and cleaner energy by keeping our economy growing. View more: https://www.heritage.org/environment/…

Can Climate Models Predict Climate Change?

Is Climate Change Our Biggest Problem?

Climate Activists Use Kids to Fuel Hysteria

Is Climate Change an Existential Threat?

You Can’t Fix Other People, But You Can Fix Yourself

Pew Research 2019 survey: ‘Climate Change’ Still Ranks As Low Priority – 17th place out of 18

Pew Research polling found: ‘Dealing with global warming’ ended up in second last place in 2007. Between 2008 and 2013, it ranked last (select a year and then ‘Overall’ here). Here’s what happened after that:

Climate Change Still Ranks As Low Priority In Polls

by Donna Laframboise

Recently, I reported on a poll that Gallup has conducted in America every month of every year since 2001. Admirably, it makes no attempt to prompt or influence.

It asks people to name the most important problem facing the country, then it records their answers.

If one seeks honest, genuine insight into ordinary people’s lives, that’s a great approach.

Pew Research Center, another American polling outfit, conducts a different kind of survey. For 25 years (from 1994 to 2019 inclusive), it has read members of the public a long list of pre-selected topics in random order. People have been asked to attach a label to each one.

Should it be a ‘top priority’ for the President and Congress this year? Should it be a lower priority? Is it unimportant? Does it deserve no attention at all?

In 2007, Pew added ‘global warming’ to this list of potential top priorities. In 2016, it started calling it ‘climate change’ instead.

Last year, 44% of respondents told Pew that ‘Dealing with global climate change’ should be a top priority.

That sounds significant until you notice thatevery single item on the list received at least 39% support.

In such cases, raw percentages are meaningless. What matters is how a topic ranks compared to its fellows. Those results couldn’t be clearer.

In 2019, climate change ended up in 17th place out of 18.

70% of people said strengthening the economy should be a top priority.

69% said reducing healthcare costs should be.

68% said the education system needs attention.

Those are very strong numbers, involving more than two-thirds of the population. What came next?

4. ‘Defending the country from future terrorist attacks’ – 67%

5. ‘Taking steps to make the Social Security system financially sound’ – 67%

Alan Dershowitz on OJ trial: We didn’t win, they lost

Will OJ Simpson see financial windfall if paroled?

What to know about O.J. Simpson’s parole hearing

O.J. Simpson is granted parole after serving 9 years for Vegas robbery

By David Montero and Matt PearceContact Reporter

O.J. Simpson was granted parole Thursday for convictions connected to a robbery in Las Vegas about a decade ago. He could be out of jail as early as October.

The moment the former football star received his fourth and final vote from the Nevada Board of Parole recommending release, Simpson dropped his head before responding, “Thank you.”

He didn’t look at his attorney or his daughter Arnelle Simpson, who had come to argue for his release. After nine years in prison, Simpson, 70, instead bowed his head again and placed his hands on the simple wooden table; once again, his every movement was broadcast to millions of people on national television who were curious to see his fate.

On social media, a familiar cry rang out: “The Juice is loose.”

The ruling came after a hearing in which Simpson testified that he longed to be reunited with his family and children and that he has no interest in returning to the media spotlight following his conviction for the armed robbery of two memorabilia dealers.

Prison had separated the Hall of Fame running back from the glitzy lifestyle he once led, Simpson testified at the hearing. He hasn’t drunk alcohol in nine years and said he didn’t miss it. He has been the commissioner of an 18-team prison softball league. He took a prison computer class not because he was interested in computers, but so he could exchange electronic messages with his four children, because, he said, his kids were less responsive to phone calls.

“Oh, yes, sure,” Simpson responded. “I wish this would have never happened. … If I would have made a better judgment back then, none of this would have happened.”

Simpson expressed some regret but did not appear overly apologetic during the hearing. Remorse, however, is not a requirement for parole under Nevada law. “The board does not require that an inmate state or indicate that they are remorseful,” Board of Parole spokesman David M. Smith said.

During the hearing, Simpson was assured by one of his victims that the former football star and actor already has a ride waiting for him when he gets out.

“I feel that it’s time to give him a second chance; it’s time for him to go home to his family, his friends,” Bruce Fromong, a sports memorabilia dealer and a friend of Simpson’s, told the Nevada Board of Parole.

Fromong was threatened and robbed by Simpson and some of his associates in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2007, and his testimony in that case led to Simpson’s imprisonment. But, Fromong told the board, “if he called me tomorrow and said, ‘Bruce I’m getting out, would you pick me up?….’ ” At that point, Fromong paused, turned to Simpson and addressed the former USC gridiron star by his nickname: “Juice, I’d be here tomorrow. I mean that, buddy.”

The board recessed late Thursday morning after hearing more than an hour of testimony from Simpson; Arnelle Simpson, his oldest daughter; and Fromong. The panel returned about a half-hour later and unanimously voted to grant parole.

Arnelle Simpson became emotional shortly after beginning her testimony, sometimes stopping to shake her head.

“No one really knows how much we have been through, this ordeal the last nine years,” she said. She stopped and exhaled deeply, excusing herself before putting her fist up to her mouth to steady herself. “My experience with him — is that he’s like my best friend, my rock.”

She added: “As a family, we recognize he is not a perfect man. … But he has done his best.”

Simpson looked upbeat during his first public appearance in years, smiling and nodding to parole commissioners through a video link.

But while the parole hearing was specific to the 2008 robbery conviction, many of his answers to the four commissioners brought back memories of his acquittal in the 1995 double-murder of Ron Goldman and Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson.

“I’m in no danger to pull a gun on anybody. I’ve never been accused of it,” he said. “Nobody has ever accused me of pulling any weapon on them.”

Goldman and Brown were killed with a knife.

Simpson lawyer Malcolm LaVergne noted the murders — and how they played no part in Thursday’s proceedings — during a televised news conference in Lovelock, Nev., after the board’s decision.

“Obviously, there’s a 10,000-pound elephant in that room, and I think we were very successful in making sure that that elephant was sleeping and that it was washed and very clean and that it never started to rear its head,” LaVergne said.

Simpson, who turned 70 this month, only barely resembles the athletic younger man who was tried and acquitted of the murder of his ex-wife and her friend in 1994.

Wearing standard-issue blue jeans, a blue button-down shirt and a white T-shirt, Simpson appeared with close-cropped gray hair, and he looked slightly stiff as he sat at a plain wooden table inside a prison five miles outside Lovelock, where he has served nine years in prison for a robbery and kidnapping conviction in 2008.

Through a slight delay, Simpson blinked rapidly and blew out a deep breath at one point as he listened to state parole chairwoman Connie Bisbee read off the list of charges that landed him a sentence of nine to 33 years in prison.

“Mr. Simpson, you are getting the same hearing everyone else gets,” Bisbee said, then acknowledging the media firestorm that Simpson’s hearing has generated — one of the few news events to edge President Trump off the national news broadcasts. “Thank you, ma’am,” Simpson replied, laughing.

This was Simpson’s second parole hearing. His last one in 2013 resulted in parole on one of the charges stemming from the robbery and kidnapping conviction in 2008.

The commissioners asked Simpson a series of questions about how he had conducted himself in prison, what he thought his life would be like outside prison and whether he felt humbled by his convictions.

Simpson said on several occasions he was “a good guy” and indicated that he mostly wanted to spend time with his family in Florida — bemoaning missed graduations and birthdays — and that the state of Nevada might be glad to be rid of him.

“No comment,” one of the commissioners said to some laughter.

He expressed regret at being involved with the crime, but drew some pushback from commissioners who took issue with his version of events, in which he said he didn’t know a gun had been brandished in the hotel room during the robbery.

But Simpson held to his version, repeatedly apologizing and expressing regret that he had left a wedding in Las Vegas to go recover memorabilia he said was his.

“I am sorry things turned out the way they did,” Simpson said. “I had no intent to commit a crime.”

At one point, Simpson said he had not made any excuses for what he did during the years he’d spent in prison, but in the same sentence, he turned the blame toward the men who had joined him in intimidating the memorabilia dealers.

“I never should have allowed these alleged security guys to help me,” Simpson said. “These guys took over.”

Because it’s Simpson, there was high interest. On Wednesday night, media satellite trucks already were camped in the dusty parking lot facing the fences and guard towers of the prison. In Carson City, where the parole board met 100 miles to the southwest, trucks were lined up in a business park. The commissioners received hundreds of letters from members of the public, either urging them to release Simpson or keep him in prison, with many of them referencing the 1994 case.

In his testimony, Simpson referred to the effect of the incident on Fromong. “Bruce was traumatized by it,” Simpson said, adding, “He accepted my apology.” Another victim of the robbery, Alfred Beardsley, died in November.

Simpson has tangled with the legal system over the last three decades — most famously in 1995 when he was acquitted of charges that he murdered Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson. His robbery conviction in 2008 was for his attempt at the Palace Station Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas to steal memorabilia he said belonged to him.

The same four board members who granted Simpson parole four years ago were at Thursday’s hearing: Bisbee, Jackson, Tony Corda and Adam Endel.

According to Mashable, if Trump keeps his Twitter habit up at its current levels, he will tweet more than 8,000 times before the end of his first term.

Last month, top White House aides advised Trump to dial back his use of the social media platform, warning him that his unvetted tweets could “paint him into a corner” and staging a Twitter “intervention.”

Shortly after his victory over Hillary Clinton but prior to taking office, the president suggested he would be more restrained as president on Twitter.

Trump: ‘I Would Have Picked Somebody Else’ If I Knew Sessions Would Recuse Himself from Russia Probe

TRUMP NOT HAPPY WITH SESSIONS RECUSAL

Trump: ‘Sessions should have never recused himself’ from Russia investigation

Published July 19, 2017

Fox News

President Trump criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation Wednesday and warned special counselor Robert Mueller over alleged conflicts of interest in a New York Times interview published Wednesday.

In a remarkable denunciation of one of his earliest and most powerful supporters, Trump slammed Sessions’ recusal as “very unfair to the president” and said he would have never appointed Sessions attorney general if he had known he would do so.

“How do you take a job and then recuse yourself?” Trump asked rhetorically. “If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, ‘Thanks, Jeff, but I’m not going to take you.'”

There was no immediate comment from Sessions, who announced March 2 that he would recuse himself from overseeing the FBI’s investigation into alleged Russian meddling into the 2016 presidential election campaign. Sessions stepped aside after media reports that he had two conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. and failed to disclose them to Congress during his confirmation process.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is overseeing Mueller’s investigation. In his interview, Trump told the Times that he had interviewed Mueller to replace the fired James Comey as FBI Director before Rosenstein appointed him special counsel.

He was up here and he wanted the job,” Trump said of Mueller. “Talk about conflicts. But he was interviewing for the job. There were many other conflicts that I haven’t said, but I will at some point.”

The president lobbed similar conflict of interest charges at Rosenstein and acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He also accused Comey of briefing him on a dossier of unverified, incriminating information in an effort to gain leverage over the soon-to-be president.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the interview.

Trump also addressed a newly disclosed conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit earlier this month. Trump said the pair spoke for about 15 minutes at the dinner and said the conversation consisted of “pleasantries more than anything else” — though he said he and Putin also discussed adoption.

Russia had banned Americans from adopting Russian children in response to the Magnitsky Act, passed by Congress in 2012, which allowed the U.S. to impose sanctions on Russians deemed as human rights violators.

It’s the same topic Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., says he discussed with a Russian lawyer at a meeting that has drawn intense scrutiny — a coincidence Trump described in the interview as “interesting.”

According to the Times, the 50-minute interview with Trump took place Wednesday afternoon, following a lunch with Republican senators during which he told them not to go on their August recess until they presented him with a bill repealing ObamaCare

Citing Recusal, Trump Says He Wouldn’t Have Hired Sessions

By PETER BAKER, MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and MAGGIE HABERMAN JULY 19, 2017

In a remarkable public break with one of his earliest political supporters, Mr. Trump complained that Mr. Sessions’s decision ultimately led to the appointment of a special counsel that should not have happened. “Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else,” Mr. Trump said.

In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, the president also accused James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director he fired in May, of trying to leverage a dossier of compromising material to keep his job. Mr. Trump criticized both the acting F.B.I. director who has been filling in since Mr. Comey’s dismissal and the deputy attorney general who recommended it. And he took on Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel now leading the investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s election.

Mr. Trump said Mr. Mueller was running an office rife with conflicts of interest and warned investigators against delving into matters too far afield from Russia. Mr. Trump never said he would order the Justice Department to fire Mr. Mueller, nor would he outline circumstances under which he might do so. But he left open the possibility as he expressed deep grievance over an investigation that has taken a political toll in the six months since he took office.

Asked if Mr. Mueller’s investigation would cross a red line if it expanded to look at his family’s finances beyond any relationship to Russia, Mr. Trump said, “I would say yes.” He would not say what he would do about it. “I think that’s a violation. Look, this is about Russia.”

Session demonstrated very little class before Trump’s diss. Hangin round now after Trump’s verbal assault just certifies his deserved low…

While the interview touched on an array of issues, including health care, foreign affairs and politics, the investigation dominated the conversation. He said that as far as he knew, he was not under investigation himself, despite reports that Mr. Mueller is looking at whether the president obstructed justice by firing Mr. Comey.

“I don’t think we’re under investigation,” he said. “I’m not under investigation. For what? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee in June.CreditEric Thayer for The New York Times

Mr. Trump acknowledged that it was “interesting” that adoptions came up since his son, Donald Trump Jr., said that was the topic of a meeting he had with several Russians with ties to the Kremlin during last year’s campaign. Even though emails show that the session had been set up to pass along incriminating information about Hillary Clinton, the president said he did not need such material from Russia about Mrs. Clinton last year because he already had more than enough.

The interview came as the White House was trying to regain momentum after the collapse of health care legislation even while the president’s son, son-in-law and former campaign chairman were being asked to talk with Senate investigators. Relaxed and engaged, the president sat at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, with only one aide, Hope Hicks, sitting in on the interview. The session was sandwiched between a White House lunch with Republican senators and an event promoting “Made in America” week.

Over the course of 50 minutes, the often-fiery Mr. Trump demonstrated his more amiable side, joking about holding hands with the president of France and musing about having a military parade down a main avenue in Washington. He took satisfaction that unemployment has fallen and stock markets have risen to record highs on his watch.

At one point, his daughter Ivanka arrived at the doorway with her daughter, Arabella, who ran to her grandfather and gave him a kiss. He greeted the 6-year-old girl as “baby,” then urged her to show the reporters her ability to speak Chinese. She obliged.

But Mr. Trump left little doubt during the interview that the Russia investigation remained a sore point. His pique at Mr. Sessions, in particular, seemed fresh even months after the attorney general’s recusal. Mr. Sessions was the first senator to endorse Mr. Trump’s candidacy and was rewarded with a key cabinet slot, but has been more distant from the president lately.

“Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself, which frankly I think is very unfair to the president,” he added. “How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, ‘Thanks, Jeff, but I’m not going to take you.’ It’s extremely unfair — and that’s a mild word — to the president.”

Mr. Trump also faulted Mr. Sessions for his testimony during Senate confirmation hearings when Mr. Sessions said he had not had “communications with the Russians” even though he had met at least twice with Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak. “Jeff Sessions gave some bad answers,” the president said. “He gave some answers that were simple questions and should have been simple answers, but they weren’t.”

A spokesman for Mr. Sessions declined to comment on Wednesday.

The president added a new allegation against Mr. Comey, whose dismissal has become a central issue for critics who said it amounted to an attempt to obstruct the investigation into Russian meddling in the election and any possible collusion with Mr. Trump’s team.

Mr. Trump recalled that a little more than two weeks before his inauguration, Mr. Comey and other intelligence officials briefed him at Trump Tower on Russian meddling. Mr. Comey afterward pulled Mr. Trump aside and told him about a dossier that had been assembled by a former British spy filled with salacious allegations against the incoming president, including supposed sexual escapades in Moscow. The F.B.I. has not corroborated the most sensational assertions in the dossier.

In the interview, Mr. Trump said he believed Mr. Comey told him about the dossier to implicitly make clear he had something to hold over the president. “In my opinion, he shared it so that I would think he had it out there,” Mr. Trump said. As leverage? “Yeah, I think so,” Mr. Trump said. “In retrospect.”

The president dismissed the assertions in the dossier: “When he brought it to me, I said this is really made-up junk. I didn’t think about any of it. I just thought about, man, this is such a phony deal.”

Mr. Comey declined to comment on Wednesday.

But Mr. Comey and other intelligence officials decided it was best for him to raise the subject with Mr. Trump alone because he was going to remain as F.B.I. director. Mr. Comey testified before Congress that he disclosed the details of the dossier to Mr. Trump because he thought that the news media would soon be publishing details from it and that Mr. Trump had a right to know what information was out there about him. A two-page summary about the dossier was widely reported the week before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, including by The Times.

Mr. Trump rebutted Mr. Comey’s claim that in a one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office on Feb. 14, the president asked him to end the investigation into his former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn. Mr. Comey testified before Congress that Mr. Trump kicked the vice president, attorney general and several other senior administration officials out of the room before having the discussion with Mr. Comey.

“I don’t remember even talking to him about any of this stuff,” Mr. Trump said. “He said I asked people to go. Look, you look at his testimony. His testimony is loaded up with lies, O.K.?”

He expressed no second thoughts about firing Mr. Comey, saying, “I did a great thing for the American people.”

Mr. Trump was also critical of Mr. Mueller, a former F.B.I. director, reprising some of his past complaints that lawyers in his office contributed money to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. He noted that he actually interviewed Mr. Mueller to replace Mr. Comey just before his appointment as special counsel.

“He was up here and he wanted the job,” Mr. Trump said. After he was named special counsel, “I said, ‘What the hell is this all about?’ Talk about conflicts. But he was interviewing for the job. There were many other conflicts that I haven’t said, but I will at some point.”

The president also expressed discontent with Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, a former federal prosecutor from Baltimore. When Mr. Sessions recused himself, the president said he was irritated to learn where his deputy was from. “There are very few Republicans in Baltimore, if any,” he said of the predominantly Democratic city.

He complained that Mr. Rosenstein had in effect been on both sides when it came to Mr. Comey. The deputy attorney general recommended Mr. Comey be fired but then appointed Mr. Mueller, who may be investigating whether the dismissal was an obstruction of justice. “Well, that’s a conflict of interest,” Mr. Trump said. “Do you know how many conflicts of interests there are?”

In an interview with Fox News before Mr. Trump’s comments were published, Mr. Rosenstein said he was confident Mr. Mueller could avoid any conflict of interests. “We have a process with the department to take care of that,” he said.

As for Andrew G. McCabe, the acting F.B.I. director, the president suggested that he, too, had a conflict. Mr. McCabe’s wife, Jill McCabe, received nearly $500,000 in 2015 during a losing campaign for the Virginia Senate from a political action committee affiliated with Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who is close friends with Hillary and Bill Clinton.

In his first description of his dinnertime conversation with Mr. Putin at the Group of 20 summit meeting in Hamburg, Germany, Mr. Trump played down its significance. He said his wife, Melania, was seated next to Mr. Putin at the other end of a table filled with world leaders.

“The meal was going toward dessert,” he said. “I went down just to say hello to Melania, and while I was there I said hello to Putin. Really, pleasantries more than anything else. It was not a long conversation, but it was, you know, could be 15 minutes. Just talked about things. Actually, it was very interesting, we talked about adoption.”

He noted the adoption issue came up in the June 2016 meeting between his son and Russian visitors. “I actually talked about Russian adoption with him,” he said, meaning Mr. Putin. “Which is interesting because it was a part of the conversation that Don had in that meeting.”

But the president repeated that he did not know about his son’s meeting at the time and added that he did not need the Russians to provide damaging information about Mrs. Clinton.

“There wasn’t much I could say about Hillary Clinton that was worse than what I was already saying,” he said. “Unless somebody said that she shot somebody in the back, there wasn’t much I could add to my repertoire.”

Britt Hume Gives Analysis on AG Sessions Testimony

Judge Napolitano Does Not Think It’s a Good idea For Sessions to Testify Before the Senate

Krauthammer: Going After Sessions is the Democrats’ Third Attempt to Take Down the President

Krauthammer Says Sessions Did a Good Job Fending Off Charges

Theatre of the Absurd and Beckett

SIDESHOW – BLUE MAGIC – (1974)

Sessions calls suggestion he colluded with Russia a ‘detestable lie’

The attorney general also denies that he had a third undisclosed meeting with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

By SEUNG MIN KIM and JOSH GERSTEIN

06/13/2017 03:07 PM EDT

Updated 06/13/2017 04:40 PM EDT

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday forcefully denied he engaged in any collusion with Russian officials during the campaign, calling such a suggestion a “detestable lie,” while saying he did not recall having a third undisclosed meeting with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

“The suggestion that I participated in any collusion or that I was aware of any collusion with the Russian government to hurt this country, which I have served with honor for over 35 years, or to undermine the integrity of our democratic process, is an appalling and detestable lie,” Sessions said as he testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Sessions also pushed back against the idea that he had more meetings with Kislyak, after having been forced to clarify remarks from his confirmation hearing in January that he did not have communications with Russian officials during the campaign. Two previous meetings with Kisylak surfaced earlier this year, but Sessions said on Tuesday he doesn’t remember any further encounters, including an allegation he met with Kislyak in April 2016 at the Mayflower Hotel, which hosted a foreign policy speech by Donald Trump.

“I did not have any private meetings nor do I recall any conversations with any Russian officials at the Mayflower Hotel,” Sessions said.

He later elaborated that a brief interaction with Kislyak may have occurred, noting that “I may have had an encounter during the reception” but that would’ve been the extent of any communication.

Sessions took his uncomfortable star turn in the same seat occupied by James Comey five days ago as the former FBI director pointedly accused Trump of lying about his dismissal.

Sessions has found himself at the center of the Russian controversy in recent days, particularly after Comey’s testimony that he’d asked Sessions to intervene after Trump initiated a series of contacts the FBI director viewed as improper.

The ex-FBI chief also suggested Sessions realized something inappropriate was afoot when Trump asked Comey to stay behind at an Oval Office meeting at February, while dismissing Sessions and others from the room.

“My sense was the attorney general knew he shouldn’t be leaving, which is why he was lingering,” Comey testified.

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Comey also said that in the one-on-one meeting that followed, Trump asked that the FBI “let…go” of a probe into former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn. Trump has said he made no such request.

Sessions denied on Tuesday that he stayed silent when Comey urged him never to leave him alone again with Trump — testifying that he urged the FBI and Justice Department officials to follow proper protocol in their communications with the White House.

That directly counters Comey’s testimony from last week, when the ex-FBI chief said Sessions had no response when he told the attorney general that him being left alone with Trump was inappropriate and should not happen. A Justice Department spokesman rejected Comey’s account following the June 8 hearing.

“He didn’t recall this, but I responded to his comment by agreeing that the FBI and the Department of Justice needed to be careful to follow department policies regarding appropriate contacts with the White House,” Sessions testified.

Sessions did not say if he made any effort to stop Trump from contacting the FBI, such as intervening with the president directly or seeking to pass such a message through the White House counsel or other officials.

The attorney general’s closely-watched testimony came as Washington buzzed about suggestions from Trump allies that the president was considering firing the man tapped last month to take over the probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election: special counsel Robert Mueller.

Sessions would not specifically talk about Mueller’s job performance, but said, “I have confidence in Mr. Mueller.”

The attorney general cited his recusal from the Russia probe as one of the reasons he could not elaborate on Mueller. In March, Sessions declared that because of his role in the Trump campaign he was recusing himself from all inquiries related to Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 elections.

During his testimony on Tuesday, Sessions disclosed more details of the timeline of his recusal: One day after he was sworn in as attorney general on Feb. 9, Sessions had his first meeting to generally discuss the recusal matter. Several meetings followed, and “it became clear to me over time that I qualified as a significant principal adviser type person to the campaign and it would be appropriate and the right thing for me to recuse myself.”

His recusal from matters related to the presidential campaign, which Sessions said was essentially in place from his first day as attorney general, is apparently so broad that he has never been briefed on Russian hacking attempts last year.
“I never received any detailed briefing on how the hacking occurred,” Sessions testified, saying he had only gotten his information about Russian interference in the 2016 campaign through the news media.
Speaking to Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), Sessions added that “you might have been very critical if I, as an active part of the campaign, was seeking intelligence related to something that might be relevant to the campaign.”

Sessions also said Tuesday that he would not claim executive privilege as he testifies “because that is the president’s power.” But he added that he would abide by longstanding DOJ practice to shield his discussions with Trump.

“I cannot and will not violate my duty to protect confidential communications with the president,” he said.

Sessions refused to answer a pivotal question from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.): whether he discussed Comey’s handling of the investigations into the Trump campaign with the president prior to the FBI director’s dismissal.

“I’m not able to discuss with you or confirm or deny the nature of a private conversation that I may have had with the president on this subject or others. I know this will be discussed, but that’s the rules that have been adhered to by the Department of Justice,” Sessions said.

By SEUNG MIN KIM and JOSH GERSTEIN

Asked to react to Trump’s public statement that he had the Russia probe on his mind at the time of the firing, the attorney general demurred.

“I will have to let his words speak for himself. I’m not sure what was in his mind specifically when we talked to him,” Sessions said.

As Sessions declined to answer a series of questions, Democrats bluntly accused him of undermining Congress’s effort to get to the truth. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said the lack of responses amounted to stonewalling.

“I am not stonewalling. I am following the historic policies of the Department of Justice,” the attorney general declared.

“You’re impeding this investigation,” Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said. “You are obstructing that congressional investigation by not answering the questions.”

Sessions insisted that he was not invoking executive privilege, but preserving Trump’s right to do so.

“I’m not able to invoke executive privilege that’s the president’s prerogative,” the attorney general said.

Resolving a longstanding question, Sessions acknowledged publicly for the first time Tuesday that he gave Comey no warning before his firing on May 9.

“Did you ever have a conversation about his failure to perform?” Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the committee, asked.

“I did not,” Sessions said.

“You never thought it was appropriate to raise those concerns before he was actually terminated by the president?” Warner asked.

“I did not do so,” Sessions said, noting that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein prepared a memo critiquing Comey’s performance. “It’s something that we both agreed to that a fresh start at the FBI was probably the best.”

“The timing seems a little peculiar,” Warner said.

Democratic senators and Comey have suggested that Sessions should not have been involved in the firing of the FBI director, particularly since investigations Sessions was recused from appear to have played roles in spurring that decision.

Sessions flatly rejected those arguments on Tuesday.

“It is absurd, frankly, to suggest that a recusal from a single specific investigation would render an Attorney General unable to manage the leadership of the various Department of Justice law enforcement components that conduct thousands of investigations,” Sessions said.

By LOUIS NELSON and RACHAEL BADE

The usually genial Alabaman showed outbursts of anger, including under questioning from Wyden when the Oregon Democrat pressed Sessions on what Comey found so “problematic” about the attorney general that he felt his recusal was inevitable.

“Why don’t you tell me?” Sessions responded to Wyden, his tone escalating. “There are none … this is a secret innuendo.”

Sessions also offered his first-hand account of the Feb. 14 Oval Office encounter that resulted in Comey being alone with Trump.

“We were there. I was standing there and without revealing any conversation that took place, what I do recall is I did depart. I believe everyone else did depart and Director Comey was sitting in front of the president’s desk and they were talking….That in itself is not problematic,” Sessions said.

The attorney general confirmed that the next day Comey complained about the contact.

“He did not tell me at that time any detail about anything that was said that was improper,” Sessions said, claiming he “backed [Comey] up in his concern” about improper contacts.

“He was concerned about it….His recollection of what he said about his concern is consistent with my recollection,” the attorney general added.

The Supreme Court confirmed the legitimacy of this doctrine in United States v. Nixon, but only to the extent of confirming that there is a qualified privilege. Once invoked, a presumption of privilege is established, requiring the Prosecutor to make a “sufficient showing” that the “Presidential material” is “essential to the justice of the case” (418 U.S. at 713–14). Chief JusticeWarren Burger further stated that executive privilege would most effectively apply when the oversight of the executive would impair that branch’s national security concerns.

Historically, the uses of executive privilege underscore the untested nature of the doctrine, since Presidents have generally sidestepped open confrontations with the United States Congress and the courts over the issue by first asserting the privilege, then producing some of the documents requested on an assertedly voluntary basis.

In the context of privilege assertions by US presidents, “In 1796, President George Washington refused to comply with a request by the House of Representatives for documents related to the negotiation of the then-recently adopted Jay Treaty with the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Senate alone plays a role in the ratification of treaties, Washington reasoned, and therefore the House had no legitimate claim to the material. Therefore, Washington provided the documents to the Senate but not the House.”[3]

President Thomas Jefferson continued the precedent for this in the trial of Aaron Burr for treason in 1809. Burr asked the court to issue a subpoena duces tecum to compel Jefferson to testify or provide his private letters concerning Burr. Chief Justice John Marshall, a strong proponent of the powers of the federal government but also a political opponent of Jefferson, ruled that the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, which allows for these sorts of court orders for criminal defendants, did not provide any exception for the president. As for Jefferson’s claim that disclosure of the document would imperil public safety, Marshall held that the court, not the president, would be the judge of that. Jefferson refused to personally testify but provided selected letters.

Cold War era

During the period of 1947–49, several major security cases became known to Congress. There followed a series of investigations, culminating in the famous Hiss–Chambers case of 1948. At that point, the Truman Administration issued a sweeping secrecy order blocking congressional efforts from FBI and other executive data on security problems.[citation needed] Security files were moved to the White House and Administration officials were banned from testifying before Congress on security related matters. Investigation of the State Department and other cases was stymied and the matter left unresolved.

During the Army–McCarthy hearings in 1954, Eisenhower used the claim of executive privilege to forbid the “provision of any data about internal conversations, meetings, or written communication among staffers, with no exception to topics or people.” Department of Defense employees were also instructed not to testify on any such conversations or produce any such documents or reproductions.[5] This was done to refuse the McCarthy Committee subpoenas of transcripts of monitored telephone calls from Army officials, as well as information on meetings between Eisenhower officials relating to the hearings. This was done in the form of a letter from Eisenhower to the Department of Defense and an accompanying memo from Eisenhower Justice. The reasoning behind the order was that there was a need for “candid” exchanges among executive employees in giving “advice” to one another. In the end, Eisenhower would invoke the claim 44 times between 1955 and 1960.

The Supreme Court did not reject the claim of privilege out of hand; it noted, in fact, “the valid need for protection of communications between high Government officials and those who advise and assist them in the performance of their manifold duties” and that “[h]uman experience teaches that those who expect public dissemination of their remarks may well temper candor with a concern for appearances and for their own interests to the detriment of the decisionmaking process.” This is very similar to the logic that the Court had used in establishing an “executive immunity” defense for high office-holders charged with violating citizens’ constitutional rights in the course of performing their duties. The Supreme Court stated: “To read the Article II powers of the President as providing an absolute privilege as against a subpoena essential to enforcement of criminal statutes on no more than a generalized claim of the public interest in confidentiality of nonmilitary and nondiplomatic discussions would upset the constitutional balance of ‘a workable government’ and gravely impair the role of the courts under Article III.” Because Nixon had asserted only a generalized need for confidentiality, the Court held that the larger public interest in obtaining the truth in the context of a criminal prosecution took precedence.

“Once executive privilege is asserted, coequal branches of the Government are set on a collision course. The Judiciary is forced into the difficult task of balancing the need for information in a judicial proceeding and the Executive’s Article II prerogatives. This inquiry places courts in the awkward position of evaluating the Executive’s claims of confidentiality and autonomy, and pushes to the fore difficult questions of separation of powers and checks and balances. These ‘occasion[s] for constitutional confrontation between the two branches’ are likely to be avoided whenever possible. United States v. Nixon, supra, at 692.”[6]

Post-Watergate era

Clinton administration

In 1998, President Bill Clinton became the first president since Nixon to assert executive privilege and lose in court, when a federal judge ruled that Clinton aides could be called to testify in the Lewinsky scandal.[7]

Later, Clinton exercised a form of negotiated executive privilege when he agreed to testify before the grand jury called by Independent CounselKenneth Starr only after negotiating the terms under which he would appear. Declaring that “absolutely no one is above the law”, Starr said such a privilege “must give way” and evidence “must be turned over” to prosecutors if it is relevant to an investigation.

Bush invoked executive privilege “in substance” in refusing to disclose the details of Vice PresidentDick Cheney‘s meetings with energy executives, which was not appealed by the GAO. In a separate Supreme Court decision in 2004, however, Justice Anthony Kennedy noted “Executive privilege is an extraordinary assertion of power ‘not to be lightly invoked.’ United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1, 7 (1953).

Further, on June 28, 2007, Bush invoked executive privilege in response to congressional subpoenas requesting documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor,[10] citing that:

The reason for these distinctions rests upon a bedrock presidential prerogative: for the President to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among his advisors and between those advisors and others within and outside the Executive Branch.

On July 9, 2007, Bush again invoked executive privilege to block a congressional subpoena requiring the testimonies of Taylor and Miers. Furthermore, White House CounselFred F. Fielding refused to comply with a deadline set by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain its privilege claim, prove that the president personally invoked it, and provide logs of which documents were being withheld. On July 25, 2007, the House Judiciary Committee voted to cite Miers and White House Chief of StaffJoshua Bolten for contempt of Congress.[11][12]

On July 13, less than a week after claiming executive privilege for Miers and Taylor, Counsel Fielding effectively claimed the privilege once again, this time in relation to documents related to the 2004 death of Army RangerPat Tillman. In a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Fielding claimed certain papers relating to discussion of the friendly-fire shooting “implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests” and would therefore not be turned over to the committee.[13]

On August 1, 2007, Bush invoked the privilege for the fourth time in little over a month, this time rejecting a subpoena for Karl Rove. The subpoena would have required the President’s Senior Advisor to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a probe over fired federal prosecutors. In a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, Fielding claimed that “Mr. Rove, as an immediate presidential advisor, is immune from compelled congressional testimony about matters that arose during his tenure and that relate to his official duties in that capacity….”[14]

Leahy claimed that President Bush was not involved with the employment terminations of U.S. attorneys. Furthermore, he asserted that the president’s executive privilege claims protecting Josh Bolten, and Karl Rove are illegal. The Senator demanded that Bolten, Rove, Sara Taylor, and J. Scott Jennings comply “immediately” with their subpoenas, presumably to await a further review of these matters. This development paved the way for a Senate panel vote on whether to advance the citations to the full Senate. “It is obvious that the reasons given for these firings were contrived as part of a cover-up and that the stonewalling by the White House is part and parcel of that same effort”, Leahy concluded about these incidents.[15][16][17][18]

As of July 17, 2008, Rove still claimed executive privilege to avoid a congressional subpoena. Rove’s lawyer wrote that his client is “constitutionally immune from compelled congressional testimony.”[19]

House Investigation of the SEC

Leaders of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission testified on February 4, 2009 before the United States House Committee on Financial Services subcommittee including Linda Chatman Thomsen S.E.C. enforcement director, acting General CounselAndy Vollmer, Andrew Donohue, Erik Sirri, and Lori Richards and Stephen Luparello of FINRA. The subject of the hearings were on why the SEC had failed to act when Harry Markopolos, a private fraud investigator from Boston alerted the Securities and Exchange Commission; detailing his persistent and unsuccessful efforts to get the SEC to investigate Bernard Madoff, beginning in 1999.[20] Vollmer claimed executive privilege in declining to answer some questions.[21][22] Subcommittee chairmanPaul E. Kanjorski asked Mr. Vollmer if he had obtained executive privilege from the U.S. Attorney General.[21] “No … this is the position of the agency,” said Vollmer.[21] “Did the SEC instruct him not to respond to questions?” Mr. Kanjorski asked.[21] Vollmer replied that it was the position of the Commission and that “the answer is no.”[21] The SEC announced Vollmer would “leave the Commission and return to the private sector,” just 14 days after making the claim.[23]

Executive privilege was also used in a lawsuit stemming from the 2012 implementation of the “Net Worth Sweep” against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Obama administration did not disclose roughly 11,000 documents from the plaintiffs in the discovery process as they related to the reasoning behind the 2012 actions.[citation needed]

Trump Administration

While investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, the Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenaed former FBI Director James Comey to testify. Comey was fired several weeks before being subpoenaed but had appeared before the committee once before in March while still serving as director. Less than a week before the scheduled hearing, it was reported that President Trump was considering invoking executive privilege to prevent Comey’s testimony. [27][28] According to attorney Page Pate, it seems unlikely that executive privilege will be applicable here, as Trump has publicly spoken about the encounters in question multiple times.[29]

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a White house spokesman, released a statement on June 5th stating: “The president’s power to assert executive privilege is very well-established. However, in order to facilitate a swift and thorough examination of the facts sought by the Senate Intelligence Committee, President Trump will not assert executive privilege regarding James Comey’s scheduled testimony.”[30]

Types

The “Ten-in-One” offers a program of ten sequential acts under one tent for a single admission price. The ten-in-one might be partly a freak show exhibiting “human oddities” (including “born freaks” such as midgets, giants or persons with other deformities, or “made freaks” like tattooed people, fat people or “human skeletons”- extremely thin men often “married” to the fat lady, like Isaac W. Sprague). However, for variety’s sake, the acts in a ten-in-one would also include “working acts” who would perform magic tricks or daredevil stunts. In addition, the freak show performers might also perform acts or stunts, and would often sell souvenirs like “giant’s rings” or “pitch cards” with their photos and life stories. The ten-in-one would often end in a “blowoff” or “ding,” an extra act not advertised on the outside, which could be viewed for an additional fee. The blowoff act would be described provocatively, often as something deemed too strong for women and children, such as pickled punks.

The “Single-O” is a single attraction, for example a single curiosity like the “Bonnie and Clyde Death Car” or Hitler’s staff car,[1][2] a “Giant Rat” (actually usually a nutria) or other unusual animal, a “What Is It?” (often a convincing but artificial monstrosity like the Fiji Mermaid) or a geek show often billed as “See the Victim of Drug Abuse.”

A “Museum Show” which might be deceptively billed as “World’s Greatest Freaks Past and Present,” is a sideshow in which the exhibits are usually not alive. It might include tanks of piranhas or cages with unusual animals, stuffed freak animals or other exotic items like the weapons or cars allegedly used by famous murderers. Some of the exhibits might even be dummies or photographs of the billed attractions. It could still be truthfully billed with the claim “$1,000 reward if not absolutely real — please do not touch or feed the animals on exhibit”. The Single-O and the Museum Show are usually operated as “grind shows,” meaning that patrons may enter at any time, viewing the various exhibits at their leisure.

* A “Girl Show” was sometimes offered in which women were the primary attraction. These could range from the revue (such as a “Broadway Revue”) with fully clothed performers to the racier “kootch” or “hootchie-kootchie” show (a strip show) which might play either partly clothed or “strong” (nude).[3]

Acts

“Working acts” often exhibited a number of stunts that could be counted on to draw crowds. These stunts used little-known methods and offered the elements of danger and excitement. Although the mainstream media often explained fanciful methods of performing these acts, the real secret was usually that there is no secret, you just do it. Such acts included fire eating, sword swallowing, knife throwing, body piercing, lying on a bed of nails, walking up a ladder of sharp swords, and more. The renewed attention to these feats has prompted a new round of oversimplified or inaccurate explanations, leading some inexperienced people to attempt them without adequate training often resulting in injury and sometimes even death.

Decline and revival

Interest in sideshows declined as television made it easy (and free) to see the world’s most exotic attractions. Moreover, viewing “human oddities” became distasteful as the public conscience changed, and many localities passed laws forbidding the exhibition of freaks.[citation needed] The performers often protested (to no avail) that they had no objection to the sideshow, especially since it provided not only a good income for them, but in many cases it provided their only possible job. The sideshow seemed destined for oblivion, until only a few exemplars of the ten-in-one remained. A greater number of “Single O” attractions still tour carnivals.

In the early 1990s, Jim Rose developed a modern sideshow called “the Jim Rose Circus“, reinventing the sideshow with two types of acts that would attract modern audiences and stay within legal bounds. The show featured acts reviving traditional sideshow stunts and carrying some of them to extremes, and “fringe” artists (often exhibiting extreme body modification) performing bizarre or masochistic acts like eating insects, lifting weights by means of hooks inserted in their body piercings, or stapling currency to their forehead. The show drew audiences at venues unknown to old-time sideshows, like rock clubs and the 1992 Lollapalooza festival. The Jim Rose Circus held its last known performance in 2013 at The London Burlesque Festival. The impact of the Jim Rose Circus on pop culture inspired a new wave of performers. There are now more sideshow performers than at any other time in the genre’s history. At the same time in Canada, Scott McClelland, grandson of itinerant showman N.P. Lewchuk, formed Carnival Diablo, a show that performs frequently to this day. The success of these shows sparked a growing number of performers to revive the traditional sideshow arts, taught by sideshow veterans, and many now perform in spot engagements from rock clubs and comedy clubs to corporate events. “Sideshows by the Seashore“, sponsored by Coney Island USA in Brooklyn, NY has performed since 1983, and tours under the name “Coney Island Circus Sideshow“. Circus historian and collector Ken Harck ran the Brothers Grim Sideshow, which toured with the OzzFest music festival in the summer of 2006 and 2007. Sideshow celebrity and multiple world record breaker Chayne Hultgren ‘The Space Cowboy’ owns Australia’s largest traveling oddity museum ‘The Mutant Barnyard’ and along with his partner Zoe Ellis ‘AKA: Zoe L’amore’ they run ‘Sideshow Wonderland’, one of the world’s most successful sideshows described as a modern high energy human oddity exhibit or freakshow cabaret.

World records

The longest metal coil passed through the nose and mouth is a 3.63M long (11-ft 10.91-in) coil of metal. This record is held by Andrew Stanton (USA). Stanton performs Mr Screwface on the Las Vegas SwingShift sideshow. This record was set in Lo Show dei Record in Rome, Italy.[4]

References

Story 2: Two-Party Tyranny Ignores The Real Concerns of American People — The Economy and Jobs, National Security and Terrorism, Federal Deficit Spending and Taxes, Immigration, Education and Health Care Costs — Videos

How Did The U.S. End Up With A Two-Party System?

How the Republican Party went from Lincoln to Trump

Why Doesn’t the U.S. Have a Multi-Party Political System? | Sean Wilentz

What Is Libertarianism?

Huge Drop In People Who

Democrats, Republicans Agree on Four Top Issues for Campaign

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

All rate the economy, terrorism, jobs and healthcare as important

Republicans put more priority on fixing government and the deficit

Democrats rate climate change, inequality as more important

PRINCETON, N.J. — Republicans and Democrats agree on the importance of the presidential candidates’ positions on the economy, terrorism, jobs and healthcare. Beyond these, however, the two partisan groups differ significantly on the importance they assign to other campaign issues.

These data, from Gallup’s Jan. 21-25 Election Benchmark survey, are based on Americans’ responses to a question asking them to rate the importance of the candidates’ positions on 15 issues. Overall, Americans rate the economy, terrorism, jobs, healthcare and education as most important. The detailed results are at the end of this article.

The accompanying table groups each issue based on the issue’s importance among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. Republicans’ average importance rating across the 15 issues is 67%, while Democrats’ is 71%.

The economy, terrorism, jobs and healthcare clearly are the four issues that share higher-than-average importance among both partisan groups.

Issues Important to Only One Party

Five issues are well above average in importance for Republicans, but are not as important to Democrats. These are:

The federal budget deficit

Foreign affairs

The size and efficiency of the federal government

Immigration

Taxes

Of these five, the size and efficiency of the federal government receives particularly low ratings from Democrats. It is the second lowest of any issue tested for that partisan group. Democrats’ importance ratings for the other four are below the Democratic average.

One issue has slightly above-average importance for Democrats but is well below average for Republicans: the distribution of income and wealth in the U.S. One other issue, education, is way above average for Democrats (it is their highest-rated issue), while just at the average importance rating among Republicans.

Issues Below Average in Importance to Both Parties

Four issues have below-average importance ratings for both partisan groups, although three of these are barely below the average for Democrats. These are:

Gun policy

Government regulation of Wall Street and banks

Social issues such as gay marriage and abortion

Climate change

Climate change is the lowest rated of the 15 issues tested among Republicans, while coming in just below average for Democrats. Social issues clearly have low importance across partisan lines; they are the lowest rated among Democrats and second lowest among Republicans.

Across the 15 issues, six show the largest discrepancy in rated importance between Republicans and Democrats, making these highly partisan concerns in the 2016 election environment:

Climate change. Democrats’ importance rating is 48 percentage points higher than Republicans’, making this the single most discrepant issue of the 15 tested.

Size and efficiency of the federal government. Republicans rate it more important than Democrats by 28 points.

The distribution of income and wealth in the U.S. (Democrats: more important, by 26 points)

Education. (Democrats, +23 points)

Government regulation of Wall Street and banks. (Democrats, +22)

The federal budget deficit. (Republicans, +21)

Top-of-Mind Priorities

A separate, open-ended question asked Americans to name the single issue or challenge they are most interested in having the next president address when he or she takes office next January. Americans’ most frequently given responses involve the economy, followed by mentions of immigration, defense/national security, healthcare and terrorism — generally similar to the top-ranked issues in the list format.

The biggest differences between the two partisan groups on this question involve defense and national security, mentioned spontaneously by 19% of Republicans as the most important issue for the next president, but by only 5% of Democrats. Republicans are also more likely than Democrats to mention immigration and, to a lesser extent, the economy.

For their part, Democrats are more likely to mention education, as well as issues revolving around wages and Americans’ ability to make a decent wage and, to a lesser extent, the environment.

The two partisan groups are about equally likely to mention healthcare and terrorism.

Bottom Line

Republicans and Democrats alike generally agree that the presidential candidates — and the next president, whoever that might be — should focus on the economy, on jobs, on terrorism and national security and on healthcare.

Beyond that agreement, the interests of the two partisan groups diverge, with Republicans giving more importance to certain specific issues and Democrats to others.

These differences across groups are meaningful at this point in the campaign, given that candidates are firmly focused on getting votes from their own partisans in the caucus and primary process that begins with Feb. 1 voting in Iowa. However, as the campaign pivots to the general election, the parties’ nominees to some degree will need to pay more attention to issues of importance to those outside their party — in the effort to gain votes of weakly affiliated partisans and of independents. And, of course, the research reviewed here deals only with the importance that Americans put on each concern as a campaign issue. This leaves the candidates to deal with the challenge of presenting proposals for solving the issue that resonate with their own party’s voters in the primary process, but also with a broader constituency in the general election.

These data on priorities help in evaluating how well-connected the candidates are with various constituents in the current election process. The Democratic candidates, for example, have focused on inequality and what they perceive to be the inordinate power of Wall Street — issues that are not among the most important for rank-and-file Democrats whose votes they need in the fight for their party’s nomination, unless the candidates can tie them in to broader concerns about the economy and jobs.

Republican candidates who focus on gun rights and social issues such as abortion and gay marriage likewise find themselves addressing concerns that are not among the top issues for their party’s constituents as a whole, although perhaps more so for smaller segments of the party such as evangelicals.

Overall, these data aid in the process of continuing to understand the attitudes and priorities of the American people as the election process unfolds, ultimately helping measure how well what the candidates are discussing and proposing fits with the views of the people they are vying to lead as chief executive.

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Jan. 21-25, 2016, with a random sample of 1,022 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. For results based on the total sample of 479 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, the margin of sampling error is ±6 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. For results based on the total sample of 460 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, the margin of sampling error is ±6 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.

Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 60% cellphone respondents and 40% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.

Americans Want More Than Just Budget Cuts

by Frank Newport

President Donald Trump’s new budget includes trillions of dollars in cuts to nondefense spending, affecting almost every department of the government. Gallup’s latest update shows that 28% of Americans have a favorable opinion of the federal government, while 55% have an unfavorable opinion. That’s the lowest rating for any business or industry sector we tested.

Given Americans’ negative views of the federal government, it might seem logical to assume Americans would support cutting back government funding as Trump has proposed. But it’s not that straightforward.

Further, there is strong evidence that Americans have mixed opinions on what the role of government should be in their lives. There is not a simple consensus that government and the services it provides should be cut back, regardless of consequences.

There is additional evidence that the people increasingly want their government to do more, not less.

A Gallup trend question poses this choice: “Some people think the government is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses. Others think that government should do more to solve our country’s problems. Which comes closer to your own view?”

Over the past 16 years, Americans have consistently been more likely to say the government does too much. In 2012, for example, 61% said the government is doing too much, while 34% said the government should do more. But our latest update in May found the gap down to two percentage points, with 47% saying it is doing too much and 45% saying it is not doing enough. This is the lowest gap since October 2001 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and is one of the lowest across Gallup’s entire trend since 1992.

The Wall Street Journal uses a slightly different question wording — one that produces greater support for the government doing more: “I’m going to read you two statements about the role of government, and I’d like to know which one comes closer to your point of view: Government should do more to solve problems and help meet the needs of people, or government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals?”

In their most recent asking, the Journal found 57% of Americans saying the government should do more — the highest percentage since they first asked the question in 1995.

The Journal question’s inclusion of the words “help” and “needs of the people” most likely makes this alternative more attractive to respondents than does Gallup’s wording of “do more to solve our nation’s problems.” But the key here is the finding that the public opinion trend in both wordings is toward the government doing more to solve problems and help meet the needs of the people.

All of this means it’s likely that Americans are not going to look favorably on Congress blindly following Trump’s budget proposals and simply taking a hatchet to government programs across the board without giving the whole process due diligence and deep thought.

This presents real challenges. There are not only the deep traditional divisions between Republicans and Democrats in Congress, but there are also fissures within the ranks of the Republicans themselves — so entrenched that one former Republican Senate committee staff director called them “almost theological.”

But the current budget situation, in theory, can actually provide an unusually positive opportunity for Congress to attempt to resurrect its image. If Congress can debate and discuss the budget in a rational and nonconfrontational way, it could help repair its tarnished and extraordinarily negative image. And, in the process, Congress could shed light on — and provide informed insight into — one of the most important and unresolved elements of American public opinion today: the appropriate role of government in Americans’ daily lives.

5 facts about America’s political independents

BY SAMANTHA SMITH2 COMMENTS

The share of independents in the United States stands at its highest point in more than 75 years of public opinion polling. However, a substantial majority of independents have not fully declared their independence from the two major parties. Most say they “lean” toward a party. As we found in our recent study on political animosity, partisan leaners don’t have especially positive views of the party they lean toward, yet they feel very negatively about the opposing party. Nevertheless, partisan leaners share many of the political values of – and tend to vote similarly to – members of party they lean toward.

Here are five facts about political independents.

1Independents outnumber either Democrats or Republicans. A Pew Research Center analysis that examined partisan affiliation from 1992 to 2014 found that, in 2014, 39% of the public identified as independents, which was larger than the shares calling themselves Democrats (32%) or Republicans (23%). In 2004, roughly equal shares identified as Democrats (33%), independents (30%) and Republicans (29%).

However,most independents express a partisan leaning: In 2014, 17% of the public leaned toward the Democratic Party while 16% leaned toward the GOP; just 6% declined to lean toward a party. When the partisan leanings of independents were taken into account, 48% either identified as Democrats or leaned Democratic; 39% identified as Republicans or leaned Republican.

2The most frequently cited factor for leaning toward a party is the harm caused by the opposing party’s policies. A majority of Republican leaners (55%) and roughly half of Democratic leaners (51%) cite the other party’s policies being bad for the country as a major reason why they lean toward their own party. By contrast, just 30% of Republican leaners and 34% of Democratic leaners say that their own party’s policies being good for the country is a major reason why they lean toward their party.

Why do Republican leaners choose not to identify as Republicans? About half (52%) say a major reason they do not affiliate with the party is their frustration with its leaders; 40% say it is because they disagree with the party on important issues.

Among Democratic leaners, no single reason stands out. A third say a major reason they do not identify as Democrats is that they disagree with the party on key issues, while 28% cite frustration with the party’s leadership.

3Independents who lean toward a party do not feel very warmly toward its members. When asked to rate Republicans and Democrats on a 0 to 100 “feeling thermometer” – where 0 is the coldest, most negative rating and 100 is the warmest, most positive rating – partisan-leaning independents are not very warm toward members of their own party. Fewer than half of Democratic leaners (45%) give a warm rating (more than 50) to Democrats; even fewer Republican leaners (38%) feel warmly toward Republicans.

Not surprisingly, majorities of partisans give warm ratings to their fellow partisans. Three-quarters of Democrats (75%) and two-thirds of Republicans (67%) give warm ratings to the members of their party.

But partisans and leaners are more in sync in views of those in the opposing party. Comparable majorities of both Democrats (61%) and Democratic leaners (55%) give Republicans cold ratings on the thermometer. About seven-in-ten Republicans (69%) and 57% of Republican leaners rate Democrats coldly.

4Partisan animosityhas increased sharply among independents as well as partisans. For the first time in surveys dating back more than two decades, majorities of Republicans (58%) and Democrats (55%) say they have a very unfavorable view of the opposing party. In 1994, fewer than half as many Republicans (21%) and Democrats (17%) expressed highly negative views of the other party.

But the rise in partisan animosity has not been limited to partisans. Intense dislike of the opposing party has risen sharply among independents and others who lean toward a party. Today, 44% of Republican and Democratic leaners say they have a very unfavorable impression of the opposing party, up from just 10% and 11% respectively in 1994.

5Increasing shares of independents and partisans express ideological views on major issues. Pew Research Center’s major study of political polarization in 2014 found a rise in ideological attitudes among both Republicans and Democrats over the past two decades. The same trend is evident among independents who lean toward one party or the other.

In 2015, 59% of Republicans – and 45% of Republican-leaning independents – expressed consistently conservative or mostly conservative attitudes across a series of 10 questions on political values that Pew Research Center has been asking since 1994. In 2004, just 35% of Republicans, and 24% of GOP leaners, had at least mostly conservative opinions on these issues, which include the environment, the role of government, national security and social issues.

The positions of those who identify as Democrats and those who lean toward the Democratic Party are similar over this time period: In 2015, 62% of Democrats and 56% of Democratic leaners were consistently or mostly liberal. When the two groups diverged in 2004, Democratic leaners (58%) were actually somewhat more likely than Democrats (46%) to be to the left of center.

The growing myth of the ‘independent’ voter

By Philip BumpJanuary 11, 2016

If you were to pick a random American off of the street, it’s more likely that he or she would identify as an independent than as a Democrat or a Republican. That’s been the case for a while now, of course, so the new numbers from Gallup breaking down the country’s partisanship aren’t, by themselves, earth-shattering.In Gallup’s most recent analysis, 42 percent of Americans identify as independent, compared with 29 percent who say they are Democrats and 26 percent who say they are Republicans.

What’s interesting is when you break out those independents. As we noted in August, most independents lean toward one party or the other — and in 2012, the majority of those leaning independents voted for their preferred party’s presidential candidate. (According to the book “The Gamble,” 90 percent of Democratic-leaning independents backed Obama in 2012, and 78 percent of Republican-leaning ones backed Romney.)

So an accurate picture of the electorate looks a bit more like the graph at right below than the one at left.

Since 2004, the number of what we’ll call “pure” independents — which is to say, those who aren’t leaning in one direction or the other — has increased slightly.

You can see the trend a bit more clearly looking only at the first Gallup surveys of each year. The lighter blue and red sections have gotten bigger, as have the yellow.

This is a long-term trend, but it clearly overlaps with what we’re seeing in the presidential race. People may consistently vote for Republicans, but they would rather call themselves “independents.” There’s an appeal to being an outsider and to outsider politics that’s reflected in how people see themselves.

But when the general election rolls around, those Republican-leaning independents will very likely vote for the Republican.

Ben Carson On Biased Media and Trump This Week FULL Interview

Dr. Ben Carson Talks West Point With Bill O’Reilly

Scrutinizing Ben Carson – Donald Trump – O’Reilly Talking points

November 6, 2015: GOP Presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson addressed the media this evening on the alleged false claims he made in his book, “Gifted Hands”, including that he received a full scholarship offer to West Point and that he allegedly tried to stab a friend and hit his mother with a hammer.

Rush Limbaugh: Only Trump or Carson can stop GOP donor agenda

Dr. Ben Carson’s response to a 10-year old boy-Amazing!

Dr. Carson’s amazing speech at CPAC 2014

RUSH: Dr. Ben Carson Has Everyone In Democrat Party Scared To Death

RUSH LIMBAUGH NAILS IT ABOUT BEN CARSON

“There is not a single person in the media today that could wear Dr. Benjamin Carson’s uniform, whatever uniform he puts on in a day, a business suit, if it’s surgical scrubs, there’s not a single member of the media that could do anything close to what Ben Carson has done with his life. ”

LIMBAUGH: CARSON IS VICTIM OF ‘ELECTRONIC LYNCHING’

Media ‘telling an outright lie’ in ‘an assassination attempt’

Talk-radio kingpin Rush Limbaugh shredded Politico and accused the news site and mainstream media of coordinating an “assassination attempt” against Dr. Ben Carson on Friday.

In fact, Limbaugh went even further, calling the onslaught of attacks an “electronic lynching being conducted against the Republican African-American candidate by a majority-white mainstream American liberal media.”

In a damning accusation Friday, Politico claimed Carson’s campaign “admitted he did not tell the truth” about having been accepted into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

A Carson spokesperson made a response to an inquiry by Politico into the veracity of a story in the surgeon’s autobiography, “Gifted Hands,” that the then-17-year-old was offered a full scholarship after a meeting in 1969 with Gen. William Westmoreland in 1969.

Politico reported West Point had no record of either Carson’s application or admission.

However, a Carson spokesman told the Daily Caller on Friday, “The Politico story is an outright lie.”

Doug Watts said, “The campaign never admitted to anything,” and Carson “[N]ever said he was admitted or even applied” to West Point.

“I want to show you how this works. I want to share with you some headlines that have run during the course of this program,” Limbaugh said, blasting Politico as a “liar,” and listing the following media reports Friday:

In a press conference late Friday, Carson ripped into combative reporters:

If you look at one of the websites that West Point has today, it says government offer for full scholarship to West Point. So they use that very language themselves. So almost 50 years ago, they may have been using that language as well.

They were very impressed with what I had done. I had become the city executive officer in less time than anybody else had ever done that. They were saying, “You would be a tremendous addition to the military, and we can get you into West Point with a full scholarship. I simply said, “I want to be a doctor. I really appreciate it. I’m very flattered.” And I moved on. So it didn’t go on any further than that. …

I think what it shows, and what these kinds of things show, is that there is a desperation on behalf of some to try to find a way to tarnish me because they have been looking through everything. They have been talking to everybody I’ve ever known, everybody I’ve ever seen, [saying], “There’s got to be a scandal. There’s got to be something. He’s having an affair, there’s gotta be something.” They are getting desperate. So next week it’ll be my kindergarten teacher who says that I peed in my pants. I mean, this is just ridiculous. But it’s OK because I totally expect it.

Dr. Carson explained that, as the top ROTC student in Detroit 50 years ago, he was invited to “a number of events because of my position.” In that role, he was invited to meet Gen. Westmoreland.

“That was also a time, as I recall, that several of the high brass told me that I would be somebody that they would be interested in in the military. It was an offer to me. I interpreted it as an offer. … They told me this was available to me because of my accomplishments and that they would be delighted for me to do it. And I told them immediately that my intention was to become a physician. It always has been, and I was very honored but I would not be pursuing that.”

Carson said he “made it clear” in his book that he, in fact, only applied to one college because he had just enough money for one application fee.

When relentlessly pressed about his childhood years, Carson told reporters, “My prediction is that all of you guys trying to pile on is actually going to help me, because, when I go out to these book signings and I see these thousands of people, they say, ‘Don’t let the media get you down. Don’t let them disturb you. Please continue to fight for us.’ They understand that this is a witch hunt. …

“Let me just say one thing. I do not remember this level of scrutiny for one President Barack Obama when he was running. In fact, I remember just the opposite. I remember people just [saying], ‘Oh well, we won’t really talk about that. We won’t talk about that relationship. Well, Frank Marshall Davis, we don’t want to talk about that. Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, we don’t really know him. You know, all the things that Jeremiah Wright was saying, oh, not a big problem.’

“[Obama] goes to Occidental College, doesn’t do all that well, and somehow ends up at Columbia University. His records are sealed. Why are his records sealed? Why are you guys not interested in why his records are sealed? Why are you not interested in that? Let me ask you that. Can somebody tell me why? … Now you’re saying that something that happened with the words ‘a scholarship was offered’ was the big deal, but the president of the United States, his academic records being sealed is not? Tell me how there’s equivalence there.”

Carson told reporters he wouldn’t “sit back and let you be completely unfair without letting the American people know what’s going on.”

New front-runner Ben Carson faces closer scrutiny of his life story

By David Weigel and David A. Fahrenthold

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson — now making the transition from living legend to scrutinized candidate — faced new questions Friday about the way he tells his powerful life story.

For years, Carson has said he was offered a “full scholarship” to the U.S. Military Academy when he was a high-achieving high school Army ROTC cadet in the late 1960s. But Carson never applied to West Point, was never accepted and never received a formal scholarship offer. In fact, West Point does not offer scholarships; all cadets attend free.

The story was first reported Friday by Politico. Carson responded to the resulting controversy by saying that when he spoke of an “offer,” he referred to informal, verbal statements of encouragement from military leaders he met through the ROTC, the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps .

“I was told that because of my accomplishments, they would be able to manage to get me into West Point and that I wouldn’t have to pay anything,” Carson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network. He said he decided not to apply and went to Yale University instead to pursue medicine. “There was no application process [at West Point]. I never even started down that path,” Carson said.

Carson’s campaign cast the episode as new evidence of persecution of the candidate by the news media. Tension between Carson and the media came to a boil Friday night in Florida, where at a combative news conference the candidate asked why President Obama had not been subjected to such scrutiny.

“The words ‘a scholarship was offered’ were a big deal, but the president of the United States’ academic records being sealed is not?” he said.

The original Politico report declared that Carson had “fabricated” a story about “his application and acceptance” at West Point. It also claimed that the candidate had “admitted” the fabrication.

Carson’s campaign vehemently denied those statements.

The Politico story seemed to mischaracterize a small but key detail in the way Carson has told the story. In many cases, Carson implied only that he received a formal offer from West Point. He never said explicitly that he had been accepted or even that he had applied.

“It gives journalism a bad name,” said Armstrong Williams, Carson’s close friend and business manager. “It only fits into Dr. Carson’s narrative of a witch hunt” by the media.

By mid-afternoon, Politico posted a new version of its story that no longer included the wording that Carson had “fabricated” a part of his biography. Later in the day, the news site posted an editor’s note stating that the story should have made clear that Carson never claimed to have applied for admission to West Point.

“We continue to stand by the story,” Politico spokeswoman Lauren Edmonds said in a statement. “We updated it to reflect Ben Carson’s on the record response to the New York Times and other new details, which underscore the validity of our original reporting.”

As the day went on, conservative media voices chimed in to agree with Carson. “It’s almost like the Politico is the official leak machine for the Republican establishment,” Rush Limbaugh said on his syndicated radio show. Radio host and blogger Erick Erickson replaced an entire post about “the beginning of Ben Carson’s end” with one about a “demonstrably false” Politico report.

Carson, 64, achieved worldwide fame for his daring surgeries at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and for his story of rising out of poverty in southwest Detroit. This week, as Carson has challenged Donald Trump for the lead in the Republican presidential primary contest, there has been a new focus on Carson’s personal beliefs and on the way he tells his life story.

First, the Web site BuzzFeed posted a 17-year-old video of a commencement speech in which Carson offers an alternative theory about why the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids. In Carson’s telling, they were not built to be tombs, as historians and archeologists say. Instead, they were built for grain storage, in keeping with the biblical story of Joseph, in which the patriarch counseled the pharaoh to store up grain for years of famine.

Carson told CBS News this week that he still believes that the pyramids were granaries, saying the proof was in sealed chambers inside the structures. “You would need that if you were trying to preserve grain for a long period of time,” he said.

Then, CNN sought to verify a key part of Carson’s life story: that, as a young man in Detroit, he had committed acts of violence, including smashing a boy’s nose with a thrown rock, attempting to stab a friend in the abdomen and threatening his own mother with a hammer during an argument.

CNN interviewed nine people who knew Carson during his childhood and who said that the violent incidents did not fit their recollections of him.

Carson said CNN did not speak with the right people. “I was generally a nice person,” he told the network. “It’s just that I had a very bad temper. So unless you were the victim of that temper, why would you know?”

It was an unusually odd situation: a presidential candidate insisting, in the face of skepticism, that he really did have a history of violence.

The part of Carson’s life at issue Friday — the “offer” he got, or did not get, from West Point — is a story that Carson has told repeatedly in books, interviews and speeches.

He tells it in the context of his rapid rise through high school Army ROTC, which ended with him as the top-ranking cadet in Detroit.

“I was offered a full scholarship to West Point,” Carson wrote in his 1990 memoir, “Gifted Hands.” “I didn’t refuse the scholarship outright, but I let them know that a military career wasn’t where I saw myself going. As overjoyed as I felt to be offered such a scholarship, I wasn’t really tempted. The scholarship would have obligated me to spend four years in military service after I finished college, precluding my chances to go on to medical school.”

In that account and others, Carson seems to rely on loose, broad definitions for the words “offer” and “scholarship.”

In fact, applicants to West Point must be sponsored by a member of Congress or the secretary of the Army. If accepted, they attend tuition-free: There are no “scholarships” at West Point beyond the benefits that all cadets get.

Doug Watts, a spokesman for Carson’s campaign, said Carson never completed the process for acceptance by West Point and never had an official sponsor. Indeed, in “Gifted Hands,” Carson makes clear that he actually applied only to one school: Yale.

“Each college required a ten-dollar non-returnable entrance fee sent with the application,” Carson wrote. “I had exactly ten dollars, so I could apply only to one.”

Still, his campaign spokesman said, it was proper to say Carson had an “offer” of a scholarship because military leaders had told him that his acceptance would be a sure thing.

“He was told by the ROTC commander that he could have an appointment,” Watts said. “Dr. Carson rejected the offer, did not apply or pursue admission. Had he done so, and been accepted, that would have been tantamount to a scholarship, the same that all cadets receive.”

In one of his books, Carson also made a similar claim about a scholarship offer from another school.

“The University of Michigan had offered me a scholarship, but I wanted to go farther from home,” he wrote in his 1999 book, “The Big Picture.”

A spokesman for the University of Michigan, Rick Fitzgerald, said he could not confirm that account. The university no longer has records from that time. Carson’s camp said the scenario was similar to that involving West Point: He had decided to apply elsewhere and never submitted an application.

Exclusive: Carson claimed West Point ‘scholarship’ but never applied

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson on Friday conceded that he never applied nor was granted admission to West Point and attempted to recast his previous claims of a full scholarship to the military academy — despite numerous public and written statements to the contrary over the last few decades.

West Point has occupied a central place in Carson’s personal story for years. According to a tale told in his book, “Gifted Hands,” the then-17 year old was introduced in 1969 to Gen. William Westmoreland, who had just ended his command of U.S. forces in Vietnam, and the two dined together. That meeting, according to Carson’s telling, was followed by the offer of a “full scholarship” to the military academy.

Story Continued Below

West Point, however, has no record of Carson applying, much less being extended admission.

“In 1969, those who would have completed the entire process would have received their acceptance letters from the Army Adjutant General,” said Theresa Brinkerhoff, a spokeswoman for the academy. She said West Point has no records that indicate Carson even began the application process. “If he chose to pursue (the application process), then we would have records indicating such,” she said.

When presented by POLITICO with these facts, Carson’s campaign conceded he never applied.

“Dr. Carson was the top ROTC student in the City of Detroit,” campaign manager Barry Bennett wrote in an email to POLITICO. “In that role he was invited to meet General Westmoreland. He believes it was at a banquet. He can’t remember with specificity their brief conversation but it centered around Dr. Carson’s performance as ROTC City Executive Officer.”

“He was introduced to folks from West Point by his ROTC Supervisors,” Bennett added. “They told him they could help him get an appointment based on his grades and performance in ROTC. He considered it but in the end did not seek admission.”

In an interview with The New York Times following the POLITICO story, Mr. Carson said: “I don’t remember all the specific details. Because I had done so extraordinarily well you know I was told that someone like me – they could get a scholarship to West Point. But I made it clear I was going to pursue a career in medicine.”

“It was, you know, an informal ‘with a record like yours we could easily get you a scholarship to West Point.’”

Carson would have needed to seek admission in order to receive an offer of free education from West Point. Also, according to West Point, there is no such thing as a “full scholarship” to the military academy, as Carson represented in his book.

An application to West Point begins with a nomination by a member of Congress or another prominent government or military official. After that, a rigorous vetting process begins. If offered admission, all costs are covered for all students; indeed there are no “full scholarships,” per se.

On Friday, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson conceded that he never applied nor was granted admission to West Point and attempted to recast his previous claims of a full scholarship to the military academy. POLITICO takes a look back at Carson’s eclectic career – from neurosurgeon to Hollywood subject to GOP candidate for president.

The statement from Carson’s campaign manager on Friday went on to say: “There are ‘Service Connected’ nominations for stellar High School ROTC appointments. Again he was the top ROTC student in Detroit. I would argue strongly that an Appointment is indeed an amazing full scholarship. Having ran several Congressional Offices I am very familiar with the Nomination process.

“Again though his Senior Commander was in touch with West Point and told Dr. Carson he could get in, Dr. Carson did not seek admission.”

Ben Carson has repeatedly claimed he was offered a full scholarship from West Point. He conveys the story in at least two other books, “You Have a Brain” and “Take the Risk.” Carson repeated his West Point claim as recently as Aug. 13, when he fielded questions from supporters on Facebook.

And in October, Carson shared the story with Charlie Rose: “I had a goal of achieving the office of city executive officer [in JROTC]. Well, no one had ever done that in that amount of time … Long story short, it worked, I did it. I was offered full scholarship to West Point, got to meet General Westmoreland, go to Congressional Medal dinners, but decided really my pathway would be medicine.”

The Carson campaign pushed back against POLTICO’s story after its publication, with Carson himself telling Christian Broadcasting Network’s “The Brody File” that the media “will go through all lengths trying to discredit me.” According to a tweet from the show, Carson said, of the mainstream media, “they’ll ask my kindergarten teacher, ‘did I ever wet my pants.’”

The concession from Carson’s campaign comes as serious questions about other points of fact in Carson’s personal narrative are questioned, including the seminal episode in which he claimed to have attempted to stab a close friend. Similarly, details have emerged that cast doubt on the nature of Carson’s encounter with one of the most prominent military men of that era.

The West Point spokeswoman said it certainly is possible Carson talked with Westmoreland, and perhaps the general even encouraged him to apply to West Point. However, she said, the general would have explained the benefits of a West Point education without guaranteeing him entry.

In “Gifted Hands,” Carson says he excelled in his ROTC program at Detroit’s Southwestern High School, earning the respect of his superiors — just a couple years after anger problems led him to try to murder a friend. He attained the rank of second lieutenant by his senior year of high school and became the student leader of the city’s ROTC programs.

In May of his senior year, he was chosen to march in the city’s Memorial Day parade.

“I felt so proud, my chest bursting with ribbons and braids of every kind. To make it more wonderful, we had important visitors that day. Two soldiers who had won the Congressional Medal of Honor in Viet Nam were present,” he wrote. “More exciting to me, General William Westmoreland (very prominent in the Viet Nam war) attended with an impressive entourage. Afterward, Sgt. Hunt” — his high school ROTC director — “introduced me to General Westmoreland, and I had dinner with him and the Congressional Medal winners. Later I was offered a full scholarship to West Point.”

But, according to records of Westmoreland’s schedule that were provided by the U.S. Army, the general did not visit Detroit around Memorial Day in 1969 or have dinner with Carson. In fact, the general’s records suggest he was in Washington that day and played tennis at 6:45 p.m.

There are, however, several reports of an event in February of that year, similar to the one Carson described. Then, Westmoreland was the featured guest at a 1,500-person banquet to celebrate Medal of Honor recipient Dwight Johnson. The event drew prominent guests, including the governor at the time, the mayor of Detroit, the president of Ford Motor Company and nine previous Medal of Honor awardees, according to an Associated Press account of the event.

Carson, a leader of the city’s ROTC program at the time, may have been among the invited guests at the $10-a-plate event.

Carson’s later retelling of the events in this period of his life downplays his meeting with Westmoreland and that event’s link to a West Point acceptance. In his January 2015 book, “You Have a Brain,” — a book geared toward teenagers — Carson again recalls his rapid rise through his high school ROTC program to become the top student officer in the city.

“That position allowed me the chance to meet four-star general William Westmoreland, who had commanded all American forces in Vietnam before being promoted to Army Chief of Staff at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.,” he wrote. “I also represented the Junior ROTC at a dinner for Congressional Medal of Honor winners, marched at the front of Detroit’s Memorial Day parade as head of an ROTC contingent, and was offered a full scholarship to West Point.”

Carson has said he turned down the supposed offer of admission because he knew he wanted to be a doctor and attending West Point would have required four years of military service after graduation.

Cecil Murphey, who ghostwrote “Gifted Hands,” told POLITICO that his memory of Carson’s exchange with Westmoreland was hazy.

“My gut response is that it was not a private meeting, but there were others there,” he said in an email. “The general took a liking to Ben and opened doors.”

Ben Carson admits he lied about West Point scholarship, insists stories about troubled childhood are true

BY MEG WAGNER

Ben Carson admitted Friday that he lied about earning a prestigious scholarship to West Point while controversy over the validity of his troubled kid-to-renowned doctor narrative reached a crescendo.

The 2016 GOP candidate said he fabricated a part of his 1996 autobiography, “Gifted Hands,” in which he claimed he was given a “full scholarship” to the U.S. Military Academy just hours after he rebuked accusations that he lied about his violent outbursts as a child and teenager.

In the nearly 20-year-old book, Carson boasted about his transformation from rage-filled boy to refined neurosurgeon, describing how he once tried to hit his mother with a hammer and attempted to stab one of his friends to death.

His former classmates, however, said they don’t remember the Republican as a rough kid.

“I don’t know nothing about that,” Gerald Ware, Carson’s classmate at Detroit’s Southwestern High School, told CNN. “It would have been all over the whole school.”

BRENNAN LINSLEY/AP

Republican Presidential candidate Ben Carson claimed in his 1996 book that he had a violent childhood full of moments of ‘pathological anger.’

CNN spoke with nine people Carson grew up with. Not one remembered the Republican’s self-proclaimed violent outbursts.

While Carson slammed the CNN report, calling it a “bunch of lies” and “pathetic,” he did admit that there is at least one falsehood in the book: A story about how Gen. William Westmoreland offered the then-17-year-old a full-ride to West Point.

Carson said that as the leader of his high school’s Junior ROTC program, he attended a 1969 Memorial Day dinner for Congressional Medal of Honor winners. There, he met with General Westmoreland.

Carson may have met Westmoreland at the 1969 banquet — which was held in February, not May — but the general would not have promised the student a scholarship, West Point told POLITICO. All costs are covered for admitted West Point students, so “full ride” scholarships don’t exist.

Carson was “introduced to folks from West Point by his ROTC Supervisors” at a banquet, Carson’s campaign manager Barry Bennett said. While they may have discussed application process, Carson never applied or received a scholarship.

Instead, he attended Yale University before going on to the University of Michigan’s medical school.

West Point said it has no records of Carson applying to or enrolling in the academy.

Carson admitted he “doesn’t remember all the specific details” of meeting Westmoreland.

“Because I had done so extraordinarily well you know I was told someone like me – they could get a scholarship to West Point,” Carson told the New York Times.

Despite the scholarship lie, Carson defended the rest of the book Friday, saying all the stories about his violent childhood are true.

In the 19-year-old book, Carson claimed he once tried to strike his mother with a hammer as they argued over clothing. His brother Curtis stepped in and disarmed the boy before he could physically harm their mother.

Carson also said he physically attacked at least two of his school friends.

In the seventh grade he hit a boy named Jerry with a lock after he teased Carson for saying something “stupid” in English class.

MIKE GROLL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Carson wrote that he was given a “full scholarship” to West Point.

“I swung at him, lock in hand. The blow slammed into his forehead, and he groaned, staggering backward, blood seeping from a three-inch gash,” Carson wrote.

Two years later, in the ninth grade, he tried to stab a friend who he identified in the book only as “Bob.” The blade stuck Bob’s belt buckle, breaking the blade and leaving the teen unharmed.

“I was trying to kill somebody,” Carson wrote of the knife attack, calling it a moment of “pathological anger.”

The teenage Carson ran to the bathroom after the failed stabbing and prayed. Since then, he has never had a problem with his temper, he claimed in the book.

Carson’s classmates remembered him as introverted and studious — someone who was more likely to be found in the library than in the middle of a schoolyard fight.

Carson’s classmates have described him as a quiet, shy student, not an angry young man.

“He was a quiet, shy kid, not too outgoing,” said his junior high and high school classmate Jerry Dixon. “Bennie stayed home a lot or went to the library to work.”

Dixon said he is not the Jerry the doctor-turned-politician beat with a lock — and said he had never even heard of such an incident.

Carson refused to reveal the names of his victims in a Friday interview on CNN, saying to name them would be “victimizing.”

He admitted that he changed the names in his autobiography, but maintained both “Bob” and “Jerry” are real people who will only be identified if they chose to come forward on their own.

Ben Carson prepared to board his campaign bus after appearing at a book signing in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Thursday.Credit Joe Raedle/Getty Images

A report on Friday said Ben Carson had acknowledged never having applied to West Point, raising questions about his repeated assertions that he had turned down a scholarship to attend the military academy.

According to the report, in Politico, West Point had no record that Mr. Carson, who has been leading in some national polls in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, had applied. When Politico approached Mr. Carson’s campaign with the information, his campaign manager, Barry Bennett, in a statement, explained that Mr. Carson had considered an offer to receive help getting an appointment to the academy, but he did not apply.

In repeated references to West Point over the years, Mr. Carson has strongly implied that he had a standing offer to attend.

In his statement, Mr. Bennett said, “Dr. Carson was the top R.O.T.C. student in the City of Detroit.”

Referring to Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the Army chief of staff at the time, Mr. Bennett added: “In that role he was invited to meet General Westmoreland. He believes it was at a banquet. He can’t remember with specificity their brief conversation but it centered around Dr. Carson’s performance as R.O.T.C. city executive officer.”

“He was introduced to folks from West Point by his R.O.T.C. supervisors,” Mr. Bennett said. “They told him they could help him get an appointment based on his grades and performance in R.O.T.C. He considered it but in the end did not seek admission.”

In an interview with The New York Times on Friday, Mr. Carson said: “I don’t remember all the specific details. Because I had done so extraordinarily well you know I was told that someone like me – they could get a scholarship to West Point. But I made it clear I was going to pursue a career in medicine.”

“It was, you know, an informal ‘with a record like yours we could easily get you a scholarship to West Point.’”

Mr. Carson has recounted the episode of being offered a scholarship at various points in telling his triumphant personal story. (Technically, West Point does not offer scholarships; it is free to attend.)

In his recent book, “You Have a Brain,” Mr. Carson described how he decided which college to attend: “I still had the scholarship offer from West Point as a result of my R.O.T.C. achievements.”

“But I knew medicine is what I wanted to do. So I applied to only one school. (it was all the money I had). I applied to Yale and thank God they accepted me. I often wonder what might have happened had they said no.”

The revelation came just a couple of days after a CNN report questioned the accuracy of Mr. Carson’s accounts of violent episodes in his youth, which are central to his often-told story of personal redemption through faith and hard work, one that has made him a favorite of evangelical Christian voters. On Friday, shortly before the Politico report was published, Mr. Carson attacked the CNN report as a “bunch of lies.”

Ben Carson defends his telling of an informal offer from West Point

By David Weigel

Ben Carson defended his long-told story of a “scholarship” to West Point today, responding to scrutiny by saying that he merely had received an “informal” offer of a free ride to the military academy.

“Because I had done so extraordinarily well you know I was told that someone like me [could] get a scholarship to West Point,” Carson told the New York Times. “It was, you know, an informal ‘with a record like yours we could easily get you a scholarship to West Point.'”

Allies of the former neurosurgeon, who has slowly risen to the top of 2016 Republican primary polls, had been making a similar case all day. The argument — which depends on a careful parsing of verbs — is that he never applied, even after being told he’d be a sure-thing candidate. The point, which found many takers in conservative media, was that the controversy could be dismissed as a witch hunt.

That reasoning came together Friday morning, after Politico published a story titled “Ben Carson admits fabricating West Point scholarship.” After confirming that Carson had never applied to West Point, and that a meeting Carson described with Gen. William Westmoreland apparently did not happen when the candidate had claimed, the story quoted Carson campaign manager Barry Bennett’s new explanation.

“He was introduced to folks from West Point by his ROTC Supervisors,” Bennett said. “They told him they could help him get an appointment based on his grades and performance in ROTC. He considered it but in the end did not seek admission.”

West Point cadets must be sponsored by a member of Congress or the Secretary of the Army. But Doug Watts, a spokesman for the campaign, said that Carson never completed — nor claimed to have completed — the process for acceptance into West Point, and those never had an official sponsor.

“He was told by the ROTC Commander that he could have an appointment,” explained Watts. “Dr. Carson rejected the offer, did not apply or pursue admission. Had he done so, and been accepted, that would have been tantamount to a scholarship, the same that all cadets receive.”

In an interview, Carson’s close friend Armstrong Williams argued that Politico had written a false headline off of Bennett’s accurate quote.

“In the story itself, the campaign does not say Dr. Carson applied to West Point,” Williams said of Politico. “Dr. Carson boasts about his scores in ROTC. Westmoreland encourages him to apply. As Dr. Carson says, they were impressed by his scores, but he never applied. They said to him, we could get you in. This guy got into Yale — obviously he could have got in. The headline was a fabrication.”

Carson, whose steady rise to the top of presidential primary polls has started to draw media scrutiny his way, is depending on a loose interpretation of the word “scholarship.” There is no tuition at West Point; there is no equivalent of a “scholarship” as generally understood at most universities. In his memoir “Gifted Hands” and in anecdotes about the offer, Carson never says that he “applied,” only that some “scholarship” came his way after a meeting with Westmoreland and “congressional medal winners.”

“I was offered a full scholarship to West Point,” Carson wrote. “I didn’t refuse the scholarship outright, but I let them know that a military career wasn’t where I saw myself going. As overjoyed as I felt to be offered such a scholarship, I wasn’t really tempted. The scholarship would have obligated me to spend four years in military service after I finished college, precluding my chances to go on to medical school.”

That description of the offer came with its own problems — it is not, for example, impossible for a West Point graduate to complete his service, then become a doctor. But Carson’s allies insist that the gap between “applying” and being offered a “scholarship” debunks the Politico story. Indeed, in “Gifted Hands,” Carson repeatedly described how he had only $10 to submit with a college application, limiting his choices.

“Each college required a ten-dollar non-returnable entrance fee sent with the application,” Carson wrote. “I had exactly ten dollars, so I could apply only to one.”

In an August 2015 Facebook post, Carson described that situation again, to tell a questioner that he applied only to Yale.

“I was the highest student ROTC member in Detroit and was thrilled to get an offer from West Point,” wrote Carson. “But I knew medicine is what I wanted to do. So I applied to only one school. (It was all the money I had). I applied to Yale and thank God they accepted me.”

Williams, who had not spoken to Carson since Politico’s story went online, insisted that it was “shoddy journalism” and oversold what Carson himself had claimed.

“It gives journalism a bad name,” said Williams. “It only fits into Dr. Carson’s narrative of a witch hunt.”

On Friday afternoon, conservative talkers like Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, and Sean Hannity criticized the coverage that had made Carson out as a dissembler. But at least one of his rivals sense a political opportunity in the scrum.

“Well, I think it’s really the beginning of the end,” said Donald Trump in an interview.

In two of his books — the popular “Gifted Hands” as well as a newer book entitled “You Have a Brain” — Carson tells the West Point story as part of his aspirational life that began in poverty in Detroit and continued through a decorated career as a world-renowned pediatric neurosurgeon.

Now we know that story is, at best, somewhat misleading. It is of course possible that Carson was either led to believe he might have been given a scholarship to the military academy if he had applied or simply misunderstood a conversation he participated in. That is the direction the Carson team appears to be headed, saying in a statement of his meeting with then-Gen. William Westmoreland: “He can’t remember with specificity their brief conversation but it centered around Dr. Carson’s performance as ROTC City Executive Officer.”

Regardless of whether the West Point story is a simple misunderstanding or something more nefarious, what it will do is raise this simple question: What else in Ben Carson’s remarkable biography might not be totally, 100 percent accurate?

Even before the West Point story broke, Carson was dealing with suggestions that his recounting of his tough childhood highlighted by a terrible temper and a series of altercations with his mother — among other people — might not be true.

A CNN report, which was based on interviews with nine people who knew Carson as a young man, argues that the violent portrait he paints of himself doesn’t jibe with the person they knew. “All of the people interviewed expressed surprise about the incidents Carson has described,” reads the CNN story. “No one challenged the stories directly. Some of those interviewed expressed skepticism, but noted that they could not know what had happened behind closed doors.”

Carson spent Thursday insisting that the people who were directly involved in these purported attacks weren’t the people that CNN had spoken to and, therefore, the report had no merit.

Now, with the West Point story raging, Carson will come under even more pressure to explain some of the fuzzier parts of his personal biography. And if any other inconsistencies or outright falsehoods come out amid that heightened scrutiny, it could spell curtains for a Carson campaign that has just moved into the pole position in the Republican primary race.

With question over West Point offer, Ben Carson feels the glare of the front-runner’s spotlight

Timothy M. Phelps

retired Baltimore neurosurgeon Ben Carson has reached the top in several recent national polls, he is also experiencing new scrutiny as a front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.

On Friday, his name dominated political news with a Politico report that his campaign “admits fabricating a West Point scholarship” in his autobiography, though that reference was later taken out of the story. The story also quoted a West Point spokeswoman as saying the famous military academy had no record of an application from Carson.

Barry Bennett, Carson’s campaign manager, said in an interview that Carson’s book,“Gifted Hands,” was accurate when Carson wrote, “I was offered a full scholarship to West Point.”

“I would not have used the word ‘full scholarship.’ I would have said ‘nomination,’ but it’s not a fabrication, it’s not a lie,” Bennett said in an interview. At West Point, tuition and other expenses are paid by the government.

Bennett said that Carson, who he said was the top high school Junior ROTC officer in Detroit, was offered a nomination to West Point by ROTC officials in the city. He said he did not have names, but that the campaign and others are trying to locate them to corroborate Carson’s story.

Later, Carson told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly that his account of the West Point episode “could have been more clarified. I told it as I understood it.”

Also, Theresa Brinkerhoff, the chief of media relations at West Point, said that a comment she made to Politico was “misconstrued.”

Politico wrote that West Point had no record of Carson applying to the academy, but Brinkerhoff said in an interview that the academy does not keep records beyond three years if a candidate does not attend the school. The academy has no way of knowing whether Carson applied, Brinkerhoff said.

In the end, Bennett confirmed that Carson had not applied. In his book, Carson wrote that he never had any interest in any career other than medicine. “I remembered the scholarship offer from West Point. A teaching career? Business? None of these areas held any real interest,” he said.

Clearly, however, Carson has left an impression that the offer to go to the academy came from West Point itself. On Facebook in August, Carson took a question from someone named Bill, who “wanted to know if it was true that I was offered a slot at West Point after high school. Bill, that is true. I was the highest student ROTC member in Detroit and was thrilled to get an offer from West Point. But I knew medicine is what I wanted to do. So I applied to only one school.”

Carson went to Yale.

Carson was also involved in a contentious interview Friday morning on CNN. Anchor Alisyn Camerota badgered him about reports by the network that it had been unable to locate some childhood friends or family members Carson mentions having assaulted in his autobiography.

In his book, Carson says he once tried to stab a person he refers to as Bob. On Friday, Carson told CNN that person was really a family member by another name who did not want to be identified. Other childhood friends mentioned in the book could decide for themselves whether to come forward, he said.

Bennett said the political attacks were a function of national polls over the past week showing him ahead of Donald Trump and all other Republicans for the nomination.

“Somewhere, there is a panicked candidate running for the Republican presidential nomination who is spreading a lot of dirt,” Bennett said.

Story 1: 94 Million Americans Not In Labor Force, Labor Participation Rate Stuck At 62.6% A 38 Year Low, Unemployment Rate Declines To 5.1% –8 Million Unemployed — Fed Will Increase Federal Funds Target Rate to .5% In September — Three Years Late As Usual — Call It Clueless PHDs Lag — Videos

U.S. Stocks Suffer Heavy Losses After Mixed Jobs Report

August Jobs Report Provides Mixed Message

US Economy Riding 66 Month Job Growth Streak

What to Watch Friday: Labor Department Releases August Jobs Report

Peter Schiff: U.S. problems are ‘homegrown’, China is not the problem

Peter Schiff: The U.S. Dollar is very overvalued and the dollar is a bubble

Keiser Report: Rule 48 (E806)

The labor force participation rate stayed stuck at 62.6 percent, a 38-year low, for a third straight month in August, the Labor Department reported on Friday. (AP File Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – A record 94,031,000 Americans were not in the American labor force last month — 261,000 more than July — and the labor force participation rate stayed stuck at 62.6 percent, a 38-year low, for a third straight month in August, the Labor Department reported on Friday, as the nation heads into the Labor Day weekend.

The number of Americans not in the labor force has continued to rise, partly because of retiring baby-boomers and fewer workers entering the workforce.

In August, according to BLS, the nation’s civilian noninstitutional population, consisting of all people 16 or older who were not in the military or an institution, reached 251,096,000. Of those, 157,065,000 participated in the labor force by either holding a job or actively seeking one.

The 157,065,000 who participated in the labor force equaled only 62.6 percent of the 251,096,000 civilian noninstitutional population — the same as it was in July and June. Not since October 1977, when the participation rate dropped to 62.4, has the percentage been this low.

Historical perspective

In January 1948 — the first year the data was recorded — 88.7 percent of men, aged 20 and older, were participating in the U.S. labor force. The rate first dipped below 80 percent in November 1975 (79.9%), spiraling steadily downward through August 2015, when 71.5 percent of men 20 and older were participating in the labor force.

It’s the opposite story for women 20 and older: In 1948, a time when one-earner incomes were generally sufficient to support the family, only 31 percent of women participated in the workforce. In May 1966, the rate climbed above 40 percent for the first time; it broke 50 percent in October 1978; and 60 percent in July 1996.

When Barack Obama took office in January 2009, 60.9 percent of women were particiating in the labor force, but after rising somewhat in that economically turbulent year, the particpation rate for women started heading down. Last month, it stood at 58.2 percent.

Other notes from Friday’s jobs report:

— In August, the economy added 173,000 jobs, and the uemmployment rate dropped a tenth of a point to 5.1 percent from 5.2 percent. Job gains occurred in health care and social assistance and in financial activities. Manufacturing and mining lost jobs.

— The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) held at 2.2 million in August and accounted for 27.7 percent of the unemployed. Over the past 12 months, the number of long-term unemployed is down by 779,000.

— The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) ticked up in August to 6,483,000, 158,000 more than the 6,325,000 recorded in July. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

Unemployment rate plunge

Akin Oyedele

The economy added 173,000 jobs last month, fewer than expected, while the unemployment rate fell to 5.1% from 5.3%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

We also got some wage growth, with average hourly earnings rising 0.3% month-over-month and 2.5% year-on-year.

The number of job gains in July was revised up to 245,000 from 215,000.

As we outlined earlier, this report was expected to hugely influence market expectations for whether the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates at its meeting later this month. A strong report was seen to support other data we’ve recently received that show the economy is advancing at a steady pace — probably steady enough to warrant the first rate increase in a decade.

In a speech just before the jobs report, Richmond Fed president Jeffrey Lacker said the labor market supported the case for raising rates sooner rather than later. But this report was unlikely to “materially alter the labor market picture or, for that matter, the monetary policy outlook.”

Also, even though inflation is still off the Fed’s 2% target, wage growth was expected to boost confidence that it is on its way there.

Other secondary labor-market indicators had pointed to strong gains in August, including initial jobless claims, and the employment components of ISM manufacturing indexes.

And it turns out, history repeated itself. Deutsche Bank’s Joe Lavorgna had noted that job gains in August had missed consensus forecasts in 21 out of the past 27 years. He had forecast a payroll print of 170,000, below consensus and closer to the actual print.

By industry, employment in mining and manufacturing declined, while education and health services added the most jobs for any industry, at 62,000.

Stocks fell after the jobs report, and Dow futures lost more than 200 points.

Here’s what Wall Street was expecting, via Bloomberg:

Nonfarm payrolls: +217,000

Unemployment rate: 5.2%

Average hourly earnings, month-over-month: +0.2%

Average hourly earnings, year-over-year: +2.1%

Average weekly hours worked: 34.5

FREDAt 5.1%, the unemployment rate is at the lowest level since April 2008.

August Jobs Report: Everything You Need to Know

Welcome to “Jobs Friday,” that ever-so-brief moment when the interests of Wall Street, Washington and Main Street are all aligned on one thing: jobs.

Friday’s report was even more significant than usual, since it’s the last one officials from the Federal Reserve will see before they meet later this month to debate a potential interest-rate hike. A rate increase, if and when it comes, would be the first for the U.S. since 2006.

When the numbers came in at 8:30 a.m. New York time, they potentially muddied the waters instead of providing clarity. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 173,000, well short of the 220,000 predicted by economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. But the unemployment rate fell to 5.1% from 5.3%, and some of the other underlying numbers painted a rosier picture.

Here at MoneyBeat HQ, we crunched the data, tracked the markets and compiled the commentary in real time. Here’s how it all went down.

Good morning, folks. This is a big one. It’s the last jobs report before Federal Reserve officials sit down for their crucial Sept. 16-17 meeting to debate a potential rate hike—the first for the U.S. since 2006.

The key question: Fed policy makers in July said they were looking for “some” further improvement in the labor market before raising rates. But how much improvement qualifies as “some?”

Employers have added on average 211,000 jobs a month this year and the jobless rate has dropped 0.4 percentage point. Will that be enough to seal the deal? We won’t definitively know the answer today. But the economists, strategist and traders who plan to pour over every detail of this data dump are certainly going to try to guess.

6:37 am

The debate won’t be settled

by Jon Hilsenrath

Fed officials have been struggling to come to a common view on whether to raise short-term rates for the first time in nearly a decade at its September policy meeting. A strong report will strengthen the hand of officials arguing to raise rates in September; a weak report will strengthen the hands of officials who want to keep them near zero. Whether weak, strong or right down the middle, the numbers are going to leave some questions unanswered and doubts in the air.

6:38 am

Economists on the fence

by Justin Lahart

In early August, 82% of economists in The Wall Street Journal’s monthly forecasting survey thought the Fed’s policy-setting committee would raise interest rates at its meeting Sept. 16 and 17. But financial-market turmoil over the past few weeks has altered those odds. Now, economists as a group are on the fence on whether the Fed moves—some say probably yes, others probably no, others give even chances.

6:43 am

What this means for liftoff

by Kristen Scholer

Market turbulence around the world the past two weeks has raised the bar for a September rate increase.

As we wrote about in Friday’s Morning MoneyBeat, the Fed has long said strength in the labor market is key to its decision to raise rates. And for several months, economists have expected the August Nonfarm Payrolls report to provide the final go ahead for the central bank.

But, amid market volatility and continued low inflation, the Fed has more to consider than just the jobs report.

6:44 am

Ugly market mood greets jobs report

by Paul Vigna

Well, this is unusual. Most of these Jobs Friday days sees stock market idling ahead of the report. Not today. Futures are down sharply, taking their cues from Europe and Asia.

U.K. stocks are down 1.6%, and every other major market is in the red, too. The CAC-40 and Dax are both off 2.1%. In Asia, Chinese marekts are still closed for the holiday, but everything else is down. The Nikkei is off 2.2%. The Kospi is down 1.5%, and India’s Sensex is down 2.2%.

U.S. futures are down sharply. S&P 500 futures are down 18.5, and Dow futures are down 167.

The yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury note has fallen to 2.14%, and WTI crude is down 0.7% at $46.43.

Does the market even care about the jobs report? Well, of course it does, and this one particularly. But the market is also caught in the vise grip of a global convulsion. The selloff has its own momentum, and it may wash right over this jobs report, no matter what the numbers say.

6:48 am

The August report has fallen short of expectations in 21 of the last 27 years

by Cynthia Lin

Ahead of the report, some economists have been warning that the first read has a history of falling short of expectations — only to get revised higher in the two subsequent months. The problem for the Fed is that it won’t see those revisions before its meeting later this month.

As we detailed earlier this week, economists at Deutsche Bank found that the August report has fallen short of expectations in 21 of the last 27 years, missing by an average 61,000. The tendency for August figures to miss (or for economists to over-predict) has Deutsche Bank forecasting a net gain of 170,000 jobs for the month. That’s a fair amount less than the median estimate of 220,000 from economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.

Yet Wrightson ICAP found that August payrolls are the ones that get the biggest upward revisions. The final read that comes out two months later has been higher than the initial read in eight of the last nine Augusts – and by a not-insignificant amount of 66,000.

6:50 am

The perfect number

by Paul Vigna

You have to figure there’s some kind of number that would hit an equilibrium spot in terms of trader sentiment. Something weak enough to get the market thinking the Fed’s going to hold off, but not so weak that you have to start worrying about a global economic meltdown.

The Fed has continuously said it will up interest rates when the data supports it. And it has placed more emphasis on the strength of the labor market versus other factors like inflation.

But now, as markets have become more volatile since the Fed last met in July and since the last employment report was released at the beginning of August, Steven Englander, global head of G10 foreign exchange strategy at Citigroup Inc., thinks payrolls hold less weight in the Fed’s decision.

“After the July FOMC, we thought that the Fed lift-off decision was 75% NFP [Nonfarm payrolls] and 25% everything else,” he said. “Now we would think that the September lift-off decision is 40% NFP and 60% everything else.”

A continuing concern for the Fed has been the slow rise in wages despite the consistent increase in the number of jobs. The July jobs report found that the rise in hourly pay of nonsupervisory employees has been slowing. In July, earnings were 1.84% higher than a year ago, down from a 2% annual increase in earnings recorded in May. Friday’s report could hint at whether this slowdown is a momentary blip or a sign of something more lasting.

6:56 am

People still on the sidelines

by David Harrison

In addition, many Americans who dropped out of the workforce in the aftermath of the recession have yet to make their way back. In July, 62.6% of those ages 16 and over were either working or looking for work, the lowest level since 1977. While some of that drop is due to the retirement of baby boomers, it’s clear many people are still sitting on the sidelines.

6:57 am

Hawkish Lacker speech coming in ahead of the jobs report

by Paul Vigna

As if the market didn’t have enough to contend with, there is a Fed speech ahead of the jobs report, and we can already tell you it won’t be taking September off the table.

Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Richmond Fed, is speaking at 8:10 a.m., in Richmond. He’s talking to the Retail Merchants Association. We haven’t seen the prepared remarks, but we don’t really need to. The title of the speech tells you everything you need to know: “The Case Against Further Delay.”

Now, Lacker is one of the Fed’s most hawkish officials to begin with, so the angle isn’t unexpected. Still, those will not be comforting headlines for the bulls.

7:03 am

Another thought on the “right” number

by Paul Vigna

Citi’s Steven Englander has also pondered the equilibrium number, and he pegs it a bit higher than I did: 175,000-200,000. “Strong enough to be regarded as firm by markets (post expected revision) but weak enough for them to delay liftoff.”

He breaks it down further:

… 175,000-200,000 – strong enough to be regarded as firm by markets (post expected revision) but weak enough maybe for them to delay liftoff- so USD falls in G3, but global asset markets maybe calmer.

Worst number for EM – very strong +230,000 with upward revisions – Sept back in picture and CNY depreciation tensions increase – good for USD in G3 as well but that is not the story.

Terrible number below 175,000 with downward revisions – certainly bad for USD within G3, but growth pessimism may take down all asset markets.

Pretty good but not great – 200,000-230,000 with modest revision – would normally be good enough for Fed to move but now is not ‘normally’ — would be USD positive in G3 and EM – could see some divergence between US asset markets (ok) and EM (not so okay).

Despite published consensus of 217,000, there is so much discussion of downward bias and upward revisions that above 200,000 should probably be considered upside surprise.

I’d add only that a big factor in arriving at the “right” number is trying to figure out just how much growth the Fed will need to see to satisfy it. I personally think the bar is pretty low, which is why I came up with a lower number.

Employment Situation Summary

Transmission of material in this release is embargoed until USDL-15-1697
8:30 a.m. (EDT) Friday, September 4, 2015
Technical information:
Household data: (202) 691-6378 * cpsinfo@bls.gov * www.bls.gov/cps
Establishment data: (202) 691-6555 * cesinfo@bls.gov * www.bls.gov/ces
Media contact: (202) 691-5902 * PressOffice@bls.gov
THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION -- AUGUST 2015
Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 173,000 in August, and the
unemployment rate edged down to 5.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
reported today. Job gains occurred in health care and social assistance and in
financial activities. Manufacturing and mining lost jobs.
Household Survey Data
In August, the unemployment rate edged down to 5.1 percent, and the number of
unemployed persons edged down to 8.0 million. Over the year, the unemployment
rate and the number of unemployed persons were down by 1.0 percentage point
and 1.5 million, respectively. (See table A-1.)
Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for whites declined to
4.4 percent in August. The rates for adult men (4.7 percent), adult women
(4.7 percent), teenagers (16.9 percent), blacks (9.5 percent), Asians
(3.5 percent), and Hispanics (6.6 percent) showed little change in August.
(See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)
The number of persons unemployed for less than 5 weeks decreased by 393,000
to 2.1 million in August. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless
for 27 weeks or more) held at 2.2 million in August and accounted for 27.7
percent of the unemployed. Over the past 12 months, the number of long-term
unemployed is down by 779,000. (See table A-12.)
In August, the civilian labor force participation rate was 62.6 percent for
the third consecutive month. The employment-population ratio, at 59.4 percent,
was about unchanged in August and has shown little movement thus far this
year. (See table A-1.)
The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes
referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed in August
at 6.5 million. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time
employment, were working part time because their hours had been cut back or
because they were unable to find a full-time job. (See table A-8.)
In August, 1.8 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force,
down by 329,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.)
These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available
for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They
were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in
the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.)
Among the marginally attached, there were 624,000 discouraged workers in
August, down by 151,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally
adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work
because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.2
million persons marginally attached to the labor force in August had not
searched for work for reasons such as school attendance or family
responsibilities. (See table A-16.)
Establishment Survey Data
Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 173,000 in August. Over the prior
12 months, employment growth had averaged 247,000 per month. In August, job
gains occurred in health care and social assistance and in financial
activities. Employment in manufacturing and mining declined. (See
table B-1.)
Health care and social assistance added 56,000 jobs in August. Health care
employment increased by 41,000 over the month, with job growth occurring in
ambulatory health care services (+21,000) and hospitals (+16,000). Employment
rose by 16,000 in social assistance, which includes child day care services
and services for the elderly and disabled. Over the year, employment has
risen by 457,000 in health care and by 107,000 in social assistance.
In August, financial activities employment increased by 19,000, with job
gains in real estate (+8,000) and in securities, commodity contracts, and
investments (+5,000). Over the year, employment in financial activities has
grown by 170,000.
Employment in professional and business services continued to trend up in
August (+33,000) and has increased by 641,000 over the year.
Employment in food services and drinking places continued on an upward trend
in August (+26,000), in line with its average monthly gain of 31,000 over
the prior 12 months.
Manufacturing employment decreased by 17,000 in August, after changing little
in July (+12,000). Job losses occurred in a number of component industries,
including fabricated metal products and food manufacturing (-7,000 each).
These losses more than offset gains in motor vehicles and parts (+6,000) and
in miscellaneous durable goods manufacturing (+4,000). Thus far this year,
overall employment in manufacturing has shown little net change.
Employment in mining fell in August (-9,000), with losses concentrated in
support activities for mining (-7,000). Since reaching a peak in December 2014,
mining employment has declined by 90,000.
Employment in other major industries, including construction, wholesale
trade, retail trade, transportation and warehousing, and government,
showed little change over the month.
The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls edged up
by 0.1 hour to 34.6 hours in August. The manufacturing workweek was unchanged
at 40.8 hours, and factory overtime edged down by 0.1 hour to 3.3 hours. The
average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private
nonfarm payrolls was unchanged at 33.7 hours. (See tables B-2 and B-7.)
In August, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm
payrolls rose by 8 cents to $25.09, following a 6-cent gain in July. Hourly
earnings have risen by 2.2 percent over the year. Average hourly earnings
of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees increased by 5
cents to $21.07 in August. (See tables B-3 and B-8.)
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for June was revised from
+231,000 to +245,000, and the change for July was revised from +215,000 to
+245,000. With these revisions, employment gains in June and July combined
were 44,000 more than previously reported. Over the past 3 months, job
gains have averaged 221,000 per month.
_____________
The Employment Situation for September is scheduled to be released on
Friday, October 2, 2015, at 8:30 a.m. (EDT).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| 2015 CES Preliminary Benchmark Revision to be released |
| on September 17, 2015 |
| |
| Each year, the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey estimates are |
| benchmarked to comprehensive counts of employment from the Quarterly |
| Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) for the month of March. These counts |
| are derived from state unemployment insurance (UI) tax records that nearly |
| all employers are required to file. On September 17, 2015, at 10:00 a.m. |
| (EDT), the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will release the preliminary |
| estimate of the upcoming annual benchmark revision to the establishment |
| survey employment series. This is the same day the First Quarter 2015 data |
| from the QCEW will be issued. Preliminary benchmark revisions for all |
| major industry sectors, as well as total nonfarm and total private levels, |
| will be available on the BLS website at |
| www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesprelbmk.htm. |
| |
| The final benchmark revision will be issued with the publication of the |
| January 2016 Employment Situation news release in February. |
| |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

– Over-the-month changes are not displayed for not seasonally adjusted data.
NOTE: Persons whose ethnicity is identified as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race. Detail for the seasonally adjusted data shown in this table will not necessarily add to totals because of the independent seasonal adjustment of the various series. Updated population controls are introduced annually with the release of January data.

Footnotes(1) Includes other industries, not shown separately.(2) Data relate to production employees in mining and logging and manufacturing, construction employees in construction, and nonsupervisory employees in the service-providing industries.(3) The indexes of aggregate weekly hours are calculated by dividing the current month’s estimates of aggregate hours by the corresponding annual average aggregate hours.(4) The indexes of aggregate weekly payrolls are calculated by dividing the current month’s estimates of aggregate weekly payrolls by the corresponding annual average aggregate weekly payrolls.(5) Figures are the percent of industries with employment increasing plus one-half of the industries with unchanged employment, where 50 percent indicates an equal balance between industries with increasing and decreasing employment.(p) Preliminary

NOTE: Data have been revised to reflect March 2014 benchmark levels and updated seasonal adjustment factors.

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Employment Situation Summary

Transmission of material in this release is embargoed until USDL-14-1796
8:30 a.m. (EDT) Friday, October 3, 2014
Technical information:
Household data: (202) 691-6378 • cpsinfo@bls.gov • www.bls.gov/cps
Establishment data: (202) 691-6555 • cesinfo@bls.gov • www.bls.gov/ces
Media contact: (202) 691-5902 • PressOffice@bls.gov
THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION -- SEPTEMBER 2014
Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 248,000 in September, and the
unemployment rate declined to 5.9 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
reported today. Employment increased in professional and business services,
retail trade, and health care.
Household Survey Data
In September, the unemployment rate declined by 0.2 percentage point to 5.9
percent. The number of unemployed persons decreased by 329,000 to 9.3 million.
Over the year, the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed persons were
down by 1.3 percentage points and 1.9 million, respectively. (See table A-1.)
Among the major worker groups, unemployment rates declined in September for
adult men (5.3 percent), whites (5.1 percent), and Hispanics (6.9 percent). The
rates for adult women (5.5 percent), teenagers (20.0 percent), and blacks (11.0
percent) showed little change over the month. The jobless rate for Asians was
4.3 percent (not seasonally adjusted), little changed from a year earlier.
(See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)
Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary
jobs decreased by 306,000 in September to 4.5 million. The number of long-term
unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was essentially unchanged at 3.0
million in September. These individuals accounted for 31.9 percent of the unemployed.
Over the past 12 months, the number of long-term unemployed is down by 1.2 million.
(See tables A-11 and A-12.)
The civilian labor force participation rate, at 62.7 percent, changed little in
September. The employment-population ratio was 59.0 percent for the fourth
consecutive month. (See table A-1.)
The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred
to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed in September at 7.1 million.
These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part
time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a
full-time job. (See table A-8.)
In September, 2.2 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force,
essentially unchanged from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.)
These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work,
and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as
unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.
(See table A-16.)
Among the marginally attached, there were 698,000 discouraged workers in September,
down by 154,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged
workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are
available for them. The remaining 1.5 million persons marginally attached to the labor
force in September had not searched for work for reasons such as school attendance or
family responsibilities. (See table A-16.)
Establishment Survey Data
Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 248,000 in September, compared with an
average monthly gain of 213,000 over the prior 12 months. In September, job growth
occurred in professional and business services, retail trade, and health care.
(See table B-1.)
Professional and business services added 81,000 jobs in September, compared with an
average gain of 56,000 per month over the prior 12 months. In September, job gains
occurred in employment services (+34,000), management and technical consulting
services (+12,000), and architectural and engineering services (+6,000). Employment
in legal services declined by 5,000 over the month.
Employment in retail trade rose by 35,000 in September. Food and beverage stores
added 20,000 jobs, largely reflecting the return of workers who had been off payrolls
in August due to employment disruptions at a grocery store chain in New England.
Employment in retail trade has increased by 264,000 over the past 12 months.
Health care added 23,000 jobs in September, in line with the prior 12-month average
gain of 20,000 jobs per month. In September, employment rose in home health care
services (+7,000) and hospitals (+6,000).
Employment in information increased by 12,000 in September, with a gain of 5,000
in telecommunications. Over the year, employment in information has shown little net
change.
Mining employment rose by 9,000 in September, with the majority of the increase
occurring in support activities for mining (+7,000). Over the year, mining has added
50,000 jobs.
Within leisure and hospitality, employment in food services and drinking places
continued to trend up in September (+20,000) and is up by 290,000 over the year.
In September, construction employment continued on an upward trend (+16,000).
Within the industry, employment in residential building increased by 6,000. Over
the year, construction has added 230,000 jobs.
Employment in financial activities continued to trend up in September (+12,000) and
has added 89,000 jobs over the year. In September, job growth occurred in insurance
carriers and related activities (+6,000) and in securities, commodity contracts,
and investments (+5,000).
Employment in other major industries, including manufacturing, wholesale trade,
transportation and warehousing, and government, showed little change over the month.
In September, the average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls
edged up by 0.1 hour to 34.6 hours. The manufacturing workweek was unchanged at
40.9 hours, and factory overtime edged up by 0.1 hour to 3.5 hours. The average
workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls
edged down by 0.1 hour to 33.7 hours. (See tables B-2 and B-7.)
Average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls, at $24.53,
changed little in September (-1 cent). Over the year, average hourly earnings
have risen by 2.0 percent. In September, average hourly earnings of private-sector
production and nonsupervisory employees were unchanged at $20.67.
(See tables B-3 and B-8.)
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised from +212,000
to +243,000, and the change for August was revised from +142,000 to +180,000.
With these revisions, employment gains in July and August combined were 69,000 more
than previously reported.
_____________
The Employment Situation for October is scheduled to be released on Friday,
November 7, 2014, at 8:30 a.m. (EST).

– Over-the-month changes are not displayed for not seasonally adjusted data.
NOTE: Persons whose ethnicity is identified as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race. Detail for the seasonally adjusted data shown in this table will not necessarily add to totals because of the independent seasonal adjustment of the various series. Updated population controls are introduced annually with the release of January data.

Footnotes(1) Includes other industries, not shown separately.(2) Data relate to production employees in mining and logging and manufacturing, construction employees in construction, and nonsupervisory employees in the service-providing industries.(3) The indexes of aggregate weekly hours are calculated by dividing the current month’s estimates of aggregate hours by the corresponding annual average aggregate hours.(4) The indexes of aggregate weekly payrolls are calculated by dividing the current month’s estimates of aggregate weekly payrolls by the corresponding annual average aggregate weekly payrolls.(5) Figures are the percent of industries with employment increasing plus one-half of the industries with unchanged employment, where 50 percent indicates an equal balance between industries with increasing and decreasing employment.(p) Preliminary

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Aerosolizing ONE DROP of EBOLA = 1/2 MILLION DEAD

Editor’s Note: Today’s commentary was submitted to CIDRAP by the authors, who are national experts on respiratory protection and infectious disease transmission. In May they published a similar commentary on MERS-CoV. Dr Brosseau is a Professor and Dr Jones an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health, Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Healthcare workers play a very important role in the successful containment of outbreaks of infectious diseases like Ebola. The correct type and level of personal protective equipment (PPE) ensures that healthcare workers remain healthy throughout an outbreak—and with the current rapidly expanding Ebola outbreak in West Africa, it’s imperative to favor more conservative measures.

The precautionary principle—that any action designed to reduce risk should not await scientific certainty—compels the use of respiratory protection for a pathogen like Ebola virus that has:

No proven pre- or post-exposure treatment modalities

A high case-fatality rate

Unclear modes of transmission

We believe there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles both near and at a distance from infected patients, which means that healthcare workers should be wearing respirators, not facemasks.1

The minimum level of protection in high-risk settings should be a respirator with an assigned protection factor greater than 10. A powered air-purifying respirator (PAPR) with a hood or helmet offers many advantages over an N95 filtering facepiece or similar respirator, being more protective, comfortable, and cost-effective in the long run.

We strongly urge the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to seek funds for the purchase and transport of PAPRs to all healthcare workers currently fighting the battle against Ebola throughout Africa—and beyond.

There has been a lot of on-line and published controversy about whether Ebola virus can be transmitted via aerosols. Most scientific and medical personnel, along with public health organizations, have been unequivocal in their statements that Ebola can be transmitted only by direct contact with virus-laden fluids2,3 and that the only modes of transmission we should be concerned with are those termed “droplet” and “contact.”

These statements are based on two lines of reasoning. The first is that no one located at a distance from an infected individual has contracted the disease, or the converse, every person infected has had (or must have had) “direct” contact with the body fluids of an infected person.

This reflects an incorrect and outmoded understanding of infectious aerosols, which has been institutionalized in policies, language, culture, and approaches to infection control. We will address this below. Briefly, however, the important points are that virus-laden bodily fluids may be aerosolized and inhaled while a person is in proximity to an infectious person and that a wide range of particle sizes can be inhaled and deposited throughout the respiratory tract.

The second line of reasoning is that respirators or other control measures for infectious aerosols cannot be recommended in developing countries because the resources, time, and/or understanding for such measures are lacking.4

Although there are some important barriers to the use of respirators, especially PAPRs, in developing countries, healthcare workers everywhere deserve and should be afforded the same best-practice types of protection, regardless of costs and resources. Every healthcare worker is a precious commodity whose well-being ensures everyone is protected.

If we are willing to offer infected US healthcare workers expensive treatments and experimental drugs free of charge when most of the world has no access to them, we wonder why we are unwilling to find the resources to provide appropriate levels of comparatively less expensive respiratory protection to every healthcare worker around the world.

How are infectious diseases transmitted via aerosols?

Medical and infection control professionals have relied for years on a paradigm for aerosol transmission of infectious diseases based on very outmoded research and an overly simplistic interpretation of the data. In the 1940s and 50s, William F. Wells and other “aerobiologists” employed now significantly out-of-date sampling methods (eg, settling plates) and very blunt analytic approaches (eg, cell culturing) to understand the movement of bacterial aerosols in healthcare and other settings. Their work, though groundbreaking at the time, provides a very incomplete picture.

Early aerobiologists were not able to measure small particles near an infectious person and thus assumed such particles existed only far from the source. They concluded that organisms capable of aerosol transmission (termed “airborne”) can only do so at around 3 feet or more from the source. Because they thought that only larger particles would be present near the source, they believed people would be exposed only via large “droplets” on their face, eyes, or nose.

Modern research, using more sensitive instruments and analytic methods, has shown that aerosols emitted from the respiratory tract contain a wide distribution of particle sizes—including many that are small enough to be inhaled.5,6 Thus, both small and large particles will be present near an infectious person.

The chance of large droplets reaching the facial mucous membranes is quite small, as the nasal openings are small and shielded by their external and internal structure. Although close contact may permit large-droplet exposure, it also maximizes the possibility of aerosol inhalation.

As noted by early aerobiologists, liquid in a spray aerosol, such as that generated during coughing or sneezing, will quickly evaporate,7 which increases the concentration of small particles in the aerosol. Because evaporation occurs in milliseconds, many of these particles are likely to be found near the infectious person.

The current paradigm also assumes that only “small” particles (less than 5 micrometers [mcm]) can be inhaled and deposited in the respiratory tract. This is not true. Particles as large as 100 mcm (and perhaps even larger) can be inhaled into the mouth and nose. Larger particles are deposited in the nasal passages, pharynx, and upper regions of the lungs, while smaller particles are more likely to deposit in the lower, alveolar regions. And for many pathogens, infection is possible regardless of the particle size or deposition site.

It’s time to abandon the old paradigm of three mutually exclusive transmission routes for a new one that considers the full range of particle sizes both near and far from a source. In addition, we need to factor in other important features of infectivity, such as the ability of a pathogen to remain viable in air at room temperature and humidity and the likelihood that systemic disease can result from deposition of infectious particles in the respiratory system or their transfer to the gastrointestinal tract.

We recommend using “aerosol transmissible” rather than the outmoded terms “droplet” or “airborne” to describe pathogens that can transmit disease via infectious particles suspended in air.

Is Ebola an aerosol-transmissible disease?

We recently published a commentary on the CIDRAP site discussing whether Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) could be an aerosol-transmissible disease, especially in healthcare settings. We drew comparisons with a similar and more well-studied disease, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

For Ebola and other filoviruses, however, there is much less information and research on disease transmission and survival, especially in healthcare settings.

Being at first skeptical that Ebola virus could be an aerosol-transmissible disease, we are now persuaded by a review of experimental and epidemiologic data that this might be an important feature of disease transmission, particularly in healthcare settings.

What do we know about Ebola transmission?

No one knows for certain how Ebola virus is transmitted from one person to the next. The virus has been found in the saliva, stool, breast milk, semen, and blood of infected persons.8,9 Studies of transmission in Ebola virus outbreaks have identified activities like caring for an infected person, sharing a bed, funeral activities, and contact with blood or other body fluids to be key risk factors for transmission.10-12

On the basis of epidemiologic evidence, it has been presumed that Ebola viruses are transmitted by contaminated hands in contact with the mouth or eyes or broken skin or by splashes or sprays of body fluids into these areas. Ebola viruses appear to be capable of initiating infection in a variety of human cell types,13,14 but the primary portal or portals of entry into susceptible hosts have not been identified.

Some pathogens are limited in the cell type and location they infect. Influenza, for example, is generally restricted to respiratory epithelial cells, which explains why flu is primarily a respiratory infection and is most likely aerosol transmissible. HIV infects T-helper cells in the lymphoid tissues and is primarily a bloodborne pathogen with low probability for transmission via aerosols.

Ebola virus, on the other hand, is a broader-acting and more non-specific pathogen that can impede the proper functioning of macrophages and dendritic cells—immune response cells located throughout the epithelium.15,16 Epithelial tissues are found throughout the body, including in the respiratory tract. Ebola prevents these cells from carrying out their antiviral functions but does not interfere with the initial inflammatory response, which attracts additional cells to the infection site. The latter contribute to further dissemination of the virus and similar adverse consequences far beyond the initial infection site.

The potential for transmission via inhalation of aerosols, therefore, cannot be ruled out by the observed risk factors or our knowledge of the infection process. Many body fluids, such as vomit, diarrhea, blood, and saliva, are capable of creating inhalable aerosol particles in the immediate vicinity of an infected person. Cough was identified among some cases in a 1995 outbreak in Kikwit, Democratic Republic of the Congo,11 and coughs are known to emit viruses in respirable particles.17The act of vomiting produces an aerosol and has been implicated in airborne transmission of gastrointestinal viruses.18,19 Regarding diarrhea, even when contained by toilets, toilet flushing emits a pathogen-laden aerosol that disperses in the air.20-22

Experimental work has shown that Marburg and Ebola viruses can be isolated from sera and tissue culture medium at room temperature for up to 46 days, but at room temperature no virus was recovered from glass, metal, or plastic surfaces.23 Aerosolized (1-3 mcm) Marburg, Ebola, and Reston viruses, at 50% to 55% relative humidity and 72°F, had biological decay rates of 3.04%, 3.06%. and 1.55% per minute, respectively. These rates indicate that 99% loss in aerosol infectivity would occur in 93, 104, and 162 minutes, respectively.23

In still air, 3-mcm particles can take up to an hour to settle. With air currents, these and smaller particles can be transported considerable distances before they are deposited on a surface.

There is also some experimental evidence that Ebola and other filoviruses can be transmitted by the aerosol route. Jaax et al24 reported the unexpected death of two rhesus monkeys housed approximately 3 meters from monkeys infected with Ebola virus, concluding that respiratory or eye exposure to aerosols was the only possible explanation.

Zaire Ebola viruses have also been transmitted in the absence of direct contact among pigs25 and from pigs to non-human primates,26 which experienced lung involvement in infection. Persons with no known direct contact with Ebola virus disease patients or their bodily fluids have become infected.12

Direct injection and exposure via a skin break or mucous membranes are the most efficient ways for Ebola to transmit. It may be that inhalation is a less efficient route of transmission for Ebola and other filoviruses, as lung involvement has not been reported in all non-human primate studies of Ebola aerosol infectivity.27 However, the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems are not complete barriers to Ebola virus. Experimental studies have demonstrated that it is possible to infect non-human primates and other mammals with filovirus aerosols.25-27

Altogether, these epidemiologic and experimental data offer enough evidence to suggest that Ebola and other filoviruses may be opportunistic with respect to aerosol transmission.28 That is, other routes of entry may be more important and probable, but, given the right conditions, it is possible that transmission could also occur via aerosols.

Guidance from the CDC and WHO recommends the use of facemasks for healthcare workers providing routine care to patients with Ebola virus disease and respirators when aerosol-generating procedures are performed. (Interestingly, the 1998 WHO and CDC infection-control guidance for viral hemorrhagic fevers in Africa, still available on the CDC Web site, recommends the use of respirators.)

Facemasks, however, do not offer protection against inhalation of small infectious aerosols, because they lack adequate filters and do not fit tightly against the face.1 Therefore, a higher level of protection is necessary.

Which respirator to wear?

As described in our earlier CIDRAP commentary, we can use a Canadian control-banding approach to select the most appropriate respirator for exposures to Ebola in healthcare settings.29 (See this document for a detailed description of the Canadian control banding approach and the data used to select respirators in our examples below.)

The control banding method involves the following steps:

Identify the organism’s risk group (1 to 4). Risk group reflects the toxicity of an organism, including the degree and type of disease and whether treatments are available. Ebola is in risk group 4, the most toxic organisms, because it can cause serious human or animal disease, is easily transmitted, directly or indirectly, and currently has no effective treatments or preventive measures.

Identify the generation rate. The rate of aerosol generation reflects the number of particles created per time (eg, particles per second). Some processes, such as coughing, create more aerosols than others, like normal breathing. Some processes, like intubation and toilet flushing, can rapidly generate very large quantities of aerosols. The control banding approach assigns a qualitative rank ranging from low (1) to high (4) (eg, normal breathing without coughing has a rank of 1).

Identify the level of control. Removing contaminated air and replacing it with clean air, as accomplished with a ventilation system, is effective for lowering the overall concentration of infectious aerosol particles in a space, although it may not be effective at lowering concentration in the immediate vicinity of a source. The number of air changes per hour (ACH) reflects the rate of air removal and replacement. This is a useful variable, because it is relatively easy to measure and, for hospitals, reflects building code requirements for different types of rooms. Again, a qualitative ranking is used to reflect low (1) versus high (4) ACH. Even if the true ventilation rate is not known, the examples can be used to select an appropriate air exchange rate.

Identify the respirator assigned protection factor. Respirators are designated by their “class,” each of which has an assigned protection factor (APF) that reflects the degree of protection. The APF represents the outside, environmental concentration divided by the inside, facepiece concentration. An APF of 10 means that the outside concentration of a particular contaminant will be 10 times greater than that inside the respirator. If the concentration outside the respirator is very high, an assigned protection factor of 10 may not prevent the wearer from inhaling an infective dose of a highly toxic organism.

Practical examples

Two examples follow. These assume that infectious aerosols are generated only during vomiting, diarrhea, coughing, sneezing, or similar high-energy emissions such as some medical procedures. It is possible that Ebola virus may be shed as an aerosol in other manners not considered.

Caring for a patient in the early stages of disease (no bleeding, vomiting, diarrhea, coughing, sneezing, etc). In this case, the generation rate is 1. For any level of control (less than 3 to more than 12 ACH), the control banding wheel indicates a respirator protection level of 1 (APF of 10), which corresponds to an air purifying (negative pressure) half-facepiece respirator such as an N95 filtering facepiece respirator. This type of respirator requires fit testing.

Caring for a patient in the later stages of disease (bleeding, vomiting, diarrhea, etc).If we assume the highest generation rate (4) and a standard patient room (control level = 2, 3-6 ACH), a respirator with an APF of at least 50 is needed. In the United States, this would be equivalent to either a full-facepiece air-purifying (negative-pressure) respirator or a half-facepiece PAPR (positive pressure), but standards differ in other countries. Fit testing is required for these types of respirators.

The control level (room ventilation) can have a big effect on respirator selection. For the same patient housed in a negative-pressure airborne infection isolation room (6-12 ACH), a respirator with an assigned protection factor of 25 is required. This would correspond in the United States to a PAPR with a loose-fitting facepiece or with a helmet or hood. This type of respirator does not need fit testing.

Implications for protecting health workers in Africa

Healthcare workers have experienced very high rates of morbidity and mortality in the past and current Ebola virus outbreaks. A facemask, or surgical mask, offers no or very minimal protection from infectious aerosol particles. As our examples illustrate, for a risk group 4 organism like Ebola, the minimum level of protection should be an N95 filtering facepiece respirator.

This type of respirator, however, would only be appropriate only when the likelihood of aerosol exposure is very low. For healthcare workers caring for many patients in an epidemic situation, this type of respirator may not provide an adequate level of protection.

For a risk group 4 organism, any activity that has the potential for aerosolizing liquid body fluids, such as medical or disinfection procedures, should be avoided, if possible. Our risk assessment indicates that a PAPR with a full facepiece (APF = 50) or a hood or helmet (APF = 25) would be a better choice for patient care during epidemic conditions.

We recognize that PAPRs present some logistical and infection-control problems. Batteries require frequent charging (which requires a reliable source of electricity), and the entire ensemble requires careful handling and disinfection between uses. A PAPR is also more expensive to buy and maintain than other types of respirators.

On the other hand, a PAPR with a loose-fitting facepiece (hood or helmet) does not require fit testing. Wearing this type of respirator minimizes the need for other types of PPE, such as head coverings and goggles. And, most important, it is much more comfortable to wear than a negative-pressure respirator like an N95, especially in hot environments.

A recent report from a Medecins Sans Frontieres healthcare worker in Sierra Leone30 notes that healthcare workers cannot tolerate the required PPE for more than 40 minutes. Exiting the workplace every 40 minutes requires removal and disinfection or disposal (burning) of all PPE. A PAPR would allow much longer work periods, use less PPE, require fewer doffing episodes, generate less infectious waste, and be more protective. In the long run, we suspect this type of protection could also be less expensive.

Adequate protection is essential

To summarize, for the following reasons we believe that Ebola could be an opportunistic aerosol-transmissible disease requiring adequate respiratory protection:

Patients and procedures generate aerosols, and Ebola virus remains viable in aerosols for up to 90 minutes.

All sizes of aerosol particles are easily inhaled both near to and far from the patient.

Crowding, limited air exchange, and close interactions with patients all contribute to the probability that healthcare workers will be exposed to high concentrations of very toxic infectious aerosols.

Ebola targets immune response cells found in all epithelial tissues, including in the respiratory and gastrointestinal system.

Experimental data support aerosols as a mode of disease transmission in non-human primates.

Risk level and working conditions suggest that a PAPR will be more protective, cost-effective, and comfortable than an N95 filtering facepiece respirator.

By NORIMITSU ONISHI and MARC SANTORA

Thomas E. Duncan, the Liberian man who developed Ebola symptoms in Dallas after flying from Liberia last month, lied about his history of contact with the disease on an airport questionnaire meant to screen out passengers who might be carrying the virus and is subject to prosecution when he returns, Binyah Kesselly, chairman of the Liberia Airport Authority, said Thursday.

When Mr. Duncan flew out of Roberts International Airport in Monrovia, the Liberian capital, on Sept. 19, he answered “no” to a question about whether he had had contact with any person who might have been stricken with Ebola in the past 21 days, the maximum period of incubation for Ebola, Mr. Kesselly said.

“He lied on his form,” Mr. Kesselly said. “If he had answered truthfully, he would have been sent to secondary screening immediately and not allowed to leave.”

Mr. Kesselly said Mr. Duncan would be prosecuted upon his return.

In a teleconference with reporters, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, declined to answer when asked about Mr. Kesselly’s report that Mr. Duncan had lied on his questionnaire. But he did suggest that people often do not understand their level of exposure to infectious diseases.

The status of his possible exposures is something that is being investigated now,” Dr. Frieden said.

C.D.C. officials said they were able to find the record of Mr. Duncan’s airport screening in Monrovia when he left the country and, with a temperature of 97.3 degrees, it clearly indicated that he did not have a fever.

The exit form used in all three countries in West Africa where the disease is rampant — Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone — asks about exposure, either at a funeral or as part of caregiving, to people who might have Ebola, Dr. Frieden said.

“Individuals often don’t know what their exposures might have been, and not all people disclose what those exposures might have been,” he said.

The circumstances under which Mr. Duncan became infected illustrate just how dire the situation remains in West Africa.

On Wednesday, in the Monrovia neighborhood where Mr. Duncan lives, neighbors and the parents of Marthalene Williams, 19, a woman who died of Ebola on Sept. 16, said Mr. Duncan had helped the family take her to and from John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital a day earlier after she started convulsing.

Ms. Williams, who was seven months pregnant, was turned away from the hospital for lack of space in its Ebola treatment ward, so Mr. Duncan helped carry Ms. Williams from a taxi to her home, holding her legs, after she grew too weak to walk, the family and neighbors said.

She died around 3 a.m., hours after she arrived home, said her parents, Amie and Emmanuel Williams. Mr. Duncan left Liberia three days later, flying out of Monrovia to Dallas after a layover in Brussels.

Mr. Duncan, who is a family friend and also a tenant in a house owned by the Williams family, rode in the front passenger seat of the taxi, her family said. Ms. Williams, her father and her brother, Sonny Boy, shared the back seat.

Sonny Boy Williams became symptomatic about a week ago, around the same time that Mr. Duncan first showed symptoms of Ebola, on Sept. 24. He died on Wednesday shortly after an ambulance came to pick him up from the family home.

In addition to the two men, Ms. Williams spread the virus to two other women in the cluster of houses near her family home, volunteers in a local Ebola task force said. One of those women also died on Wednesday.

Dr. Frieden said the focus on the way Mr. Duncan answered the question about exposure was part of a bigger and more complicated dilemma facing many nations that want to protect their own people.

“The plain truth,” he said, is that “we can’t make the risk zero until the outbreak is controlled in West Africa. What we can do is minimize the risk.”

He said that in September alone, around a dozen people were prevented from boarding planes in West Africa because they had a fever. Many of them did not have Ebola, but the screening indicated the level of vigilance in West Africa.

“Should we be isolating these countries in some way?” he asked. “It is a tough question.”

U.S. Patient Aided Pregnant Liberian, Then Took Ill

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

A man who flew to Dallas and was later found to have the Ebola virus was identified by senior Liberian government officials on Wednesday as Thomas Eric Duncan, a resident of Monrovia in his mid-40s.

Mr. Duncan, the first person to develop symptoms outside Africa during the current epidemic, had direct contact with a woman stricken by Ebola on Sept. 15, just four days before he left Liberia for the United States, the woman’s parents and Mr. Duncan’s neighbors said.

In a pattern often seen here in Monrovia, the Liberian capital, the family of the woman, Marthalene Williams, 19, took her by taxi to a hospital with Mr. Duncan’s help on Sept. 15 after failing to get an ambulance, said her parents, Emmanuel and Amie Williams. She was convulsing and seven months pregnant, they said.

Turned away from a hospital for lack of space in its Ebola treatment ward, the family said it took Ms. Williams back home in the evening, and that she died hours later, around 3 a.m.

RELATED COVERAGE

U.S. Patient Aided Ebola Victim in LiberiaOCT. 1, 2014

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graphic

What Are the Chances Ebola Will Spread in the United States?JULY 31, 2014

Mr. Duncan, who was a family friend and also a tenant in a house owned by the Williams family, rode in the taxi in the front passenger seat while Ms. Williams, her father and her brother, Sonny Boy, shared the back seat, her parents said. Mr. Duncan then helped carry Ms. Williams, who was no longer able to walk, back to the family home that evening, neighbors said.

Photo

The family of Marthalene Williams said Thomas Eric Duncan helped carry her to and from a hospital in the capital, Monrovia, last month. Marthalene died the next day. Liberian health officials said Wednesday that Mr. Duncan was the man who flew to Dallas and was later found to have the Ebola virus.CreditDaniel Berehulak for The New York Times

“He was holding her by the legs, the pa was holding her arms and Sonny Boy was holding her back,” said Arren Seyou, 31, who witnessed the scene and occupies the room next to Mr. Duncan’s.

Sonny Boy, 21, also started getting sick about a week ago, his family said, around the same time that Mr. Duncan first started showing symptoms.

In a sign of how furiously the disease can spread, an ambulance had come to their house on Wednesday to pick up Sonny Boy. Another ambulance picked up a woman and her daughter from the same area, and a team of body collectors came to retrieve the body of yet another woman — all four appeared to have been infected in a chain reaction started by Marthalene Williams.

A few minutes after the ambulance left, the parents got a call telling them that Sonny Boy had died on the way to the hospital.

Photo

Marie Wread, a friend of a neighbor of Marthalene Williams, became ill and was carried away by health workers in Monrovia on Wednesday.CreditDaniel Berehulak for The New York Times

Mr. Duncan had lived in the neighborhood, called 72nd SKD Boulevard, for the past two years, living by himself in a small room that he rented from the Williams couple. He had told that them and his neighbors that his son lived in the United States, played baseball, and was trying to get him to come to America.

For the past year, Mr. Duncan had worked as a driver at Safeway Cargo, the Liberian customs clearance agent for FedEx, said Henry Brunson, the company’s manager.

In an office with a large FedEx sign outside the building in downtown Monrovia, Mr. Brunson said that Mr. Duncan quit abruptly on Sept. 4, giving no reason. But Mr. Brunson said he knew that Mr. Duncan had family members in the United States as well.

“His sister came from the United States and he asked for a day off so that he could go meet her at the Mamba Point Hotel,” Mr. Brunson said, mentioning a hotel popular among foreigners. “He quit a few weeks after that.”

Q&A

What Are the Chances Ebola Will Spread in the United States?

UPDATED SEPT. 30, 2014

Officials on Tuesday said they were confident that standard procedures for controlling an infection can contain Ebola in the United States. The C.D.C. is sending experts to Texas to trace anyone who may have come in contact with the patient while he was sick with symptoms.

Doctors across the country are being reminded to ask for the travel history of anybody who comes in with a fever. Patients who have been to West Africa are being screened and tested if there seems to be a chance they have been exposed.

It helps that Ebola does not spread nearly as easily as Hollywood movies about contagious diseases might suggest. In 2008, a patient who had contracted Marburg – a virus much like Ebola – in Uganda was treated at a hospital in the United States and could have exposed more than 200 people to the disease before anyone would have known what she had. Yet no one became sick.

When did the man infected with Ebola arrive in the U.S.?

A man who traveled to Dallas from Liberia has been found to have Ebola, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Tuesday. He was screened for fever before boarding the plane — a standard airport procedure in Liberia — and showed no symptoms at that time.

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sept. 19

20

After being

checked for

symptoms,

man boards

flight from

Liberia.

Man arrives in

Dallas to visit

family.

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

Man begins

to develop

symptoms.

Man seeks

care at Dallas

hospital but

is sent home.

28

29

30

Man is admitted to Dallas hospital and is placed in isolation.

C.D.C. confirms that man’s blood is positive for

Ebola.

How many people have been infected?

More than 7,000 people in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone have contracted Ebola since March, according to the World Health Organization, making this the biggest outbreak on record.More than 3,300 people have died. In the first case diagnosed in the United States, a man who traveled from Liberia to Dallas tested positive for the virus on Sept. 30.

The disease continues to spread in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The C.D.C. said Tuesday that Nigeria appears to have contained its outbreak.

EBOLA CASES

SENEGAL

MALI

1

15

150

250

500 or more

GUINEA-

BISSAU

GUINEA

Atlantic Ocean

Guéckédou

SIERRA

LEONE

IVORY COAST

Kenema

WEST AFRICA

Monrovia

150 Miles

NIGERIA

LIBERIA

DETAIL

Source: USAID

Note: Areas affected as of Sept. 29

How big can the outbreak become?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Sept. 23 that in a worst-case scenario, cases could reach 1.4 million in four months. The centers’ model is based on data from August and includes cases in Liberia and Sierra Leone, but not Guinea (where counts have been unreliable).Estimates are in line with those made by other groups like the World Health Organization, though the C.D.C. has projected further into the future and offered ranges that account for underreporting of cases.

1,400,000

Cumulative cases in Liberia and Sierra Leone

Best-case scenario

Worst-case scenario

1,200,000

11,000-27,000 cases through Jan. 20

537,000-1.4 million cases through Jan. 20

Assumes 70 percent of patients are treated in settings that confine the illness and that the dead are buried safely. About 18 percent of patients in Liberia and 40 percent in Sierra Leone are being treated in appropriate settings.

If the disease continues spreading without effective intervention. Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the C.D.C. director, said, “My gut feeling is, the actions we’re taking now are going to make that worst-case scenario not come to pass. But it’s important to understand that it could happen.”

1,000,000

800,000

600,000

Range

400,000

200,000

0

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

Jan.

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

Jan.

Sept.

Sept.

2014

2015

2014

2015

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

What is the United States doing to help?

President Obama announced Sept. 16 an expansion of military and medical resources to combat the outbreak. He said that the United States would help Liberia in the construction of as many as 17 Ebola treatment centers in the region, with about 1,700 beds, and will also open a joint command operation to coordinate the international effort to combat the disease. The American response will include the deployment of some 3,000 American military personnel, including doctors, to Liberia and Senegal.

How does this compare to past outbreaks?

It is the deadliest, eclipsing an outbreak in 1976, the year the virus was discovered.

Ebola cases and deaths by year, and countries affected

Cases

Deaths

1976

1995

2000

2007

2014

2nd-worst year

5th

3rd

4th

1st

Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo

Democratic Republic of Congo

Uganda

Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo

Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone

602 cases

431 deaths

315 cases

254 deaths

425 cases

224 deaths

413 cases

224 deaths

6,553 cases

3,083 deaths

as of Sept. 26

Source: World Health Organization

Officials have emphasized that people are only infectious if they have symptoms of Ebola. There is no risk of transmission from people who have been exposed to the virus but are not yet showing symptoms. You are not likely to catch Ebola just by being in proximity to someone who has the virus. It is not spread through the air like the flu or respiratory viruses such as SARS.Instead, Ebola spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids. If an infected person’s blood or vomit gets in another person’s eyes, nose or mouth, the infection may be transmitted. In the current outbreak, most new cases are occurring among people who have been taking care of sick relatives or who have prepared an infected body for burial.Health care workers are at high risk, especially if they have not been properly equipped with protective gear or correctly trained to use and decontaminate it.The virus can survive on surfaces, so any object contaminated with bodily fluids, like a latex glove or a hypodermic needle, may spread the disease.

Why is Ebola so difficult to contain?

The epidemic is growing faster than efforts to keep up with it, and it will take months before governments and health workers in the region can get the upper hand, according to Doctors Without Borders.In some parts of West Africa, there is a belief that simply saying “Ebola” aloud makes the disease appear. Such beliefs have created major obstacles for physicians trying to combat the outbreak. Some people have even blamed physicians for the spread of the virus, opting to turn to witch doctors for treatment instead. Their skepticism is not without a grain of truth: In past outbreaks, hospital staff members who did not take thorough precautions became unwitting travel agents for the virus.

Ahmed Jallanzo/European Pressphoto Agency

Liberian health workers on the way to bury a woman who died of the Ebola virus.

How does the disease progress?

Symptoms usually begin about eight to 10 days after exposure to the virus, but can appear as late as 21 days after exposure, according to the C.D.C. At first, it seems much like the flu: a headache, fever and aches and pains. Sometimes there is also a rash. Diarrhea and vomiting follow.Then, in about half of the cases, Ebola takes a severe turn, causing victims to hemorrhage. They may vomit blood or pass it in urine, or bleed under the skin or from their eyes or mouths. But bleeding is not usually what kills patients. Rather, blood vessels deep in the body begin leaking fluid, causing blood pressure to plummet so low that the heart, kidneys, liver and other organs begin to fail.

How is the disease treated?

There is no vaccine or definitive cure for Ebola, and in past outbreaks the virus has been fatal in 60 percent to 90 percent of cases. The United States government plans to fast-track development of a vaccine shown to protect macaque monkeys, but there is no guarantee it will be effective in humans. The question of who should have access to the scarce supplies of an experimental medicine has become a hotly debated ethical question. Beyond this, all physicians can do is try to nurse people through the illness, using fluids and medicines to maintain blood pressure, and treat other infections that often strike their weakened bodies. A small percentage of people appear to have an immunity to the Ebola virus.

Where does the disease come from?

Ebola was discovered in 1976, and it was once thought to originate in gorillas, because human outbreaks began after people ate gorilla meat. But scientists have since ruled out that theory, partly because apes that become infected are even more likely to die than humans.Scientists now believe that bats are the natural reservoir for the virus, and that apes and humans catch it from eating food that bats have drooled or defecated on, or by coming in contact with surfaces covered in infected bat droppings and then touching their eyes or mouths.The current outbreak seems to have started in a village near Guéckédou, Guinea, where bat hunting is common, according to Doctors Without Borders.

How does Ebola compare with other infectious diseases in the news?

The biggest headlines have tended to involve outbreaks of deadly viruses that medical workers have few, if any, tools to combat. The four most prominent are compared below. No cure is known for any of them, nor has any vaccine yet been approved for human use.

Note: On Sept. 30, officials with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Mr. Duncan first went to the hospital on Sept. 26. On Oct. 1, the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital issued a statement that he first arrived there after 10 p.m. on Sept. 25.